


Dive into Blue | 5年後

by qbmagina



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blow Jobs, Creampie, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Hallucinations, Marking, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Possessive Sex, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Rough Sex, Sad Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Shameless Smut, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22656547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qbmagina/pseuds/qbmagina
Summary: Needless to say, Dimitri goes through a lot after the Battle of Garreg Mach. Once you return, you find a very different prince in his place.(I can't help but to write angst and smut! I've only played the game partway, so some details are part of the work ^^; more tags to be added as the story progresses!)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Reader
Comments: 42
Kudos: 253





	1. Ghost

This darkness spares no part of him.

Each year without you, it easily claims him for its own. It takes root in his stained core and feeds upon the endless well of vengeance in his gut. Those bright blue eyes have become dull, only lighting up with the flicker of flames eternal when there’s something in line for him to slaughter.

His reckless rage initially causes him to suffer many wounds, but he’s convinced this is well-deserved of him. He becomes wholly consumed by the crushing guilt that has plagued him since the Tragedy of Duscur. His only companions show themselves as the ghosts of his past. At times normal as they were in life, at times bloodied and mangled as they were in death – both images forever burned into his mind’s eye.

His first companion is his late father, who strikes up a normal conversation with his son about the weather before he disappears with a second glance, not even waiting for an answer. Dimitri is shocked into silence, his tongue sticking to the top of his mouth like sap to a tree. Since his escape from the dungeons of Fhirdiad, it’s been far too long since someone has talked to him directly in such a conversational tone.

The visits are infrequent, and oftentimes catch the lonely prince off guard. Each time, he feels like a caged animal, his hands clenching the staff of his lance tightly for something, anything to ground himself to. He is tortured by the constant visual reminders, more so than he has ever been. A sore reminder of his purpose, to destroy the Adrestian Empress, the girl he once called a friend. The girl he had once considered as a part of his family.

* * *

“My goodness, look at what’s happened to this place. What a shame.”

Dimitri turns around with his lance at the ready, interrupted in the middle of scavenging. It’s his father again, this time accompanied by his stepmother, who smiles gently with all the fullness in her heart, the way she always did. He bows his head in shame, undeserving of seeing that smile again. She should be instead moving to behead him for all that he’s failed to do as her stepson…as the prince of Faerghus.

“To think it would’ve been sweet little Edelgard,” his father continues, rubbing his wife’s back soothingly, “how blind we were.”

There’s a morsel of empathy in the back of Dimitri’s mind when he sees his stepmother turns her face downward, pain etched deep in her elegant features. She only did her best as a mother to them both. Not even she could’ve known Edelgard would have such ambitions, such that would lead to her own demise.

“It would have been better to kill her with that dagger rather than give it to her,” his father muses. Dimitri holds his breath, a bit of a shock to hear those words spoken so blatantly before his sweet stepmother. But she looks up into her husband’s eyes meaningfully before settling on her stepson with conviction.

She nods.

Dimitri hardens his gaze. Hot embers of rage spill over to ignite the viscous petrol of guilt in his veins, turning to ash whatever speck of sympathy he has left for that little girl he once knew.

As it should be. How could he have forgotten the moment Edelgard’s mask came off in the Holy Tomb? The unspeakable rage that caused his carefully kept carefully crafted demeanour to snap made it so that he could’ve cared less about your hand upon his shoulder. No matter Edelgard’s reasons, even what she has allowed to come to pass is beyond any shade of forgiveness.

The dagger he gifted her might as well have been smelt from the same steel and iron the rioters in Duscur used to decapitate his parents, kill Glenn, orphan poor Dedue, and lay waste to the Kingdom and Duscur. That dagger might as well have been the one Kronya had used to seal Jeralt’s fate that one Ethereal Moon.

Just how much grief had she allowed for so many people? How devastated he was, to helplessly watch his cherished friends and Fódlan grieve. How enraging it was that the people of Duscur as a whole bore the weight of the actions of a select few, Duscurian or no.

The thought that he could’ve been the one to prevent all of it ate away at him like a parasite from within.

* * *

One by one, the ghosts of his past begin to speak, following his father. Dimitri finds it somewhat endearing. As his father led by example in life, he continues to do so in death. The lonely prince comes to accept them, even as his companions become more and more harsh in their sporadic conversations with him. Clearly, this is his punishment for being unable to protect the people he holds dear, after all that they’ve done for him.

At first he tries to reason with them, at least for them to quiet down when he’s hunting. But after they cause him to mess up half of his javelin throws and scare off what must’ve been the hundredth deer since his father first showed, his patience runs thin. It’s been far too long without fresh meat and his body is starving at the rate he pushes it. He spins around with his teeth bared, snarling at Glenn, who had been accusing him of inaction.

“For fucks sake, Glenn! Just shut up for once and let me _hunt!_ ”

Glenn responds with the same scowl that Dimitri saw often upon Felix’s face. A sense of failure grips Dimitri by his throat, even more so as Glenn’s mortal wounds cut though his vessel once more. The scene has repeated itself over and over again, but the prince can’t help but to rush forth and try to stop the bleeding, leaning in close to hear Glenn’s last words.

“Stupid boar,” he strains to say, “if not for the Kingdom…then do it for your precious professor.”

Dimitri shakes his head, furrowing his brow to keep his tears from falling out. They’re definitely not the last words he muttered, but after so many times of watching him die, the original memory is starting to fade.

“Rest knowing that I’ll do it for all of you,” he says, squeezing his friend’s hand in reassurance.

With the last of his strength, Glenn pulls him to the side roughly by his mess of blonde hair, a dying gaze focusing on something beyond his head.

“Better do it quick, Your Highness. They’re onto you.”

An arrow whizzes past Dimitri’s ear and spears straight into Glenn’s open right eye, crushing the torrid amber that once smiled at a younger prince. Hardened by the continuous torment of his visions, Dimitri immediately takes cover, dragging Glenn’s limp body into the shelter of nearby bushes.

How could he have missed the rotten smell of Imperial forces? Even Glenn could tell and he’s dead. He has died countless times before, each time minutely differing from the last; sometimes losing his eye, sometimes speared to bits.

It used to feel silly to think of himself as the bringer of change to Edelgard’s vision of Fódlan. It seemed far too self-important. But what is he good for now, other than the Blaiddyd crest and name? Which is terribly ironic, when even the name is damned with the accusation of regicide that wench Cornelia has cursed him with. The Kingdom is naught; it would be silly to pin the future of Fódlan in the hands of this failed prince.

Even so, the rage is overpowering. It twists his sense of smell just like his sorrow does. He unclasps the royal Blaiddyd cloak to cover Glenn’s body before powering through the woods and crushing the enemy with his bare hands, yet again. Their simple arrows are nothing against the royal steel of his armour. Blades, lances, and axes are nothing more than cute little butter knives against his brutish strength. These scouts are measly little things, scared to death by his mere shadow.

When he’s through ripping the troop to shreds, he returns to where Glenn had been, only to find a dead buck underneath his cloak, its open right eye holding an Imperial arrow in place.


	2. Hunting Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri gets mad territorial in this short chapt

During his prowling patrols of the monastery, he comes upon the scent of bandits sneaking about the first floor dormitory grounds. Normally he would announce his presence outright as he bolts straight for his prey, but the sensation of his dropping stomach renders him still upon realising the men are in front of your former quarters. They’re huddled together in an attempt to pick the lock, blissfully unaware of the spectre of death stalking them, striding ever closer.

There are three outsiders. One with fiery blood orange hair, another smaller one with a midnight blue ponytail, and one more with a dirty blonde mane. The wind carries to him the muddled scent of a girl. One who rode a horse.

To even think of anyone anywhere near your quarters sends the fell prince into an infuriated frenzy. Even he didn’t allow himself to go in there all these years. How diligently he guarded the spaces you once occupied, in hopes of being able to see your ghost once more. How he hoped that your kind hand would lead him to find any shard of peace.

To no avail. If you truly departed this cruel world, it’s even worse that your spirit refused to visit him as well. Each day the spectres worsen, becoming expeditiously unrelenting in their criticisms of his inaction. He tries to reason with them, to appease them, to quiet them down. However, it becomes exceedingly difficult to deny the wishes of those who he once held so dear, especially when they tell him his only hope of release is to kill Edelgard.

His rage is violent and unpredictable, like magma bubbling thick underneath the crust of his skin, erupting from his every pore. Even so, he still can’t keep back the grin from the exhilaration of _hunting_ again. He launches his lance forward in a straight shot with terrifying force and accuracy, skewering the girl through her torso.

The other two coil back in shock, drawing their meagre weapons and pressing themselves against your door that creaks against their weights. They’re far too close now. He lunges forward in massive strides at the remaining two, easily disarmed in their fear, grabbing the redhead by his skull and the smaller man by his neck.

Who in the gods’ names do they think they are? How dare they come to the monastery. How dare they trespass the dormitory grounds that Dimitri patrols so religiously. How dare they try to infiltrate the professor’s private quarters, smearing their filth all over your door.

The one he has by the neck tries to speak as he frantically scratches at Dimitri’s hard, black armour – that’s enough answer for him. He effectively plants the redheaded man’s soft skull into the ground with a satisfying crunch, dragging the shell across the grass to let the mess of shaken brain within drool out. He glares at the remaining man who writhes desperately against the grip on his throat, cursing Dimitri to all hell with the look in his amber eyes, fighting to kill this devil beast of a fuckhead who killed his best friends!

Soon enough, the man’s throat gradually collapses in Dimitri’s enraged hold. Two deep, torrid and bloodshot eyes glare back at him till the man’s last breath. He has so many things to say, but Dimitri has enough voices speaking his rage for him.

_Monster_. _Curse you to the eternal flames_. _The Goddess’s breath of life was wasted on you_.

Dimitri smiles crookedly. May the curses of the lives he has felled thus far propel him to cast a curse of his own upon the Empire, with his own bare hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I made the bandits just your usual bandit NPCs but then thought why not have this poor guy lose his sense and kill peeps who look vaguely like his old friends


	3. Strength from Duscur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedue!

Dimitri finds that his companions become kinder and more sympathetic after he spends time near places you used to frequent. Your quarters, your desk in the Blue Lions’ classroom, even the corner of the library in the restricted upper level you would sneak into late at night. He remembers running into you there one night, during one of his all-nighters before his paladin certification exam. How happy you had been when he passed the next day, despite having chastised him for staying up so late. He smiles to himself, remembering the fond glow in your eyes and the small, secret smile of yours as he proudly cantered his energetic steed.

But those days are no more, and that loyal steed died long ago.

He only brushes by the places you frequented on his regular patrols. He only spends the morning sitting in front of your quarters when he counts the moons to your birthday, no matter the weather. On those days, he would prefer his other companions to be quiet in hopes of being able to hear you.

On those days, Dedue keeps him company by sitting outside of his room in a chair, quietly working on his embroidery. Sometimes he tenses, frustrated with an error as his large hands work fast to undo it. Sometimes he hums brightly, taking a moment to lean back in his chair and admire his work.

A part of his gold Duscur earring is always missing. A deep bruise and laceration is prominent on his left jaw, dealt when a Kingdom soldier kicked him in the side of his face just after he had allowed for Dimitri’s escape into the sewers of Fhirdiad.

* * *

“You let him weasel out somewhere, didn’t you? Like the fucking coward he is?”

Dedue looks up defiantly with the rage of a thousand storms behind his eyes, freezing the offending man in place.

“His Highness is _not_ a coward.”

Another soldier rams the hilt of his sword into the side of Dedue’s face. Unaffected, the mountain of a man merely realigns his glare towards the little grunt now nervous with disbelief.

“Fucking talking back now, yeah?” Someone else gripes, eager to lay their hands on another Duscurian. “Let’s see how good you can talk after we break that jaw off’a ya.”

“Guess these Duscur dogs are good for some kind of loyalty after all,” another soldier spits.

“No telling what luxuries he had a taste of, tailing after the prince like that all these years since.”

“Milking Faerghus for all the gold he can get out of it. Let’s turn this fucker into some Duscur bear meat.”

* * *

Dimitri saw it all from the grate of the sewer, keeping his jaw clenched tight just as Dedue did, watching as his friend stared meaningfully at the ground, as if his gaze alone could tear a hole through the castle grounds. He burnt those men into his memory, cursing their souls for their despicable bigotry and misplaced loyalty to Cornelia’s lies for power. How dare they consider themselves part of the Holy Knights of Faerghus. One day, he’ll hang them by their jaws. He’ll hang them alongside the Imperial forces that will flank the head of Edelgard herself.

They had kicked the pieces of the gold earring down the drainage after they managed to knock their prisoner unconscious. The fallen prince clawed through piss and shit and rats to retrieve a last physical reminder of his dear friend, the ghost of a promise upon his lips to get out and return to Fhirdiad a king.

He keeps the shard of the gold earring close to his heart, underneath the thick black armour, nestled within the pocket of his cotton undershirt. He attempts to offer the piece back to his friend on several occasions, but the man simply looks at him. No smile, no rage – nothing. Just the deep, permanent furrow of his strong brows and that knowing look in his eyes. He never speaks, just hums and breathes. He’s the only companion that stands near him. The others recoil whenever Dimitri retaliates, but Dedue never moves. 

He doesn’t move when Dimitri gets frustrated at his muteness and throws a brick at him. He stays still and lets the brick hit him hard and square in the chest. But he instead bleeds from his jaw, in the spot where the soldiers spilt his blood with so many blows. Even when he rubs at his chest, somehow the blood on his jaw spreads further instead.

As it dawns upon him that he’s no better than those lowly knights who made those wounds, Dimitri promises himself he’ll never move to hurt his friend again. Each night, he prays to the gods of Duscur for the chance to atone for his sins against his dear friend, and his sins against all of Fódlan.


	4. Came and Went

You feel the dread in your body before Thales even emerges from the trees towards Garreg Mach. You feel the urgency deep in your soul and for the first time, the silence of Sothis truly frightens you. There’s no time for you to look back at your students, or even where your late parents rest, before you shift your soul’s focus to take the hit head on. But a flash of a deep blue cape catches your attention from the corner of your eye.

 _Dimitri_.

He makes a run for you from his position in the treelines when he sees you turn your face toward the enlarging glow charging before you. In his heart, he knows what you’re planning to do. But no. Not like this. He cannot lose anyone else.

He most definitely cannot lose you. 

“Professor!” He bellows, ignoring the sinking of his heart that knows he can’t possibly make it to you in time. He wills his legs to move faster, run harder, get closer. He sees your eyes move away from him to lock with Thales standing on the hill, the Sword of the Creator held firmly in your hands. Dread bursts into his core as you’re thrown backwards by the mysterious spell, cutting through the field and opening a void to the canyon below that swallows you whole. He loses his mind when he loses sight of your figure fly beyond the limits of the field.

“BYLETH!!”

Your students are in disbelief, trying to focus on the fight in front of them. The Immaculate One roars in ancient anguish, a rage of millennia deep within her soul.

* * *

The sensation of a thousand suns penetrates your every cell and the fall is long. You see nothing at first – no darkness, no light. You feel surrounded by a uniform chill, an endless tingling all across your skin as you melt wholly into the stars. It’s empty. No sign of Sothis like before. Try as you might, you cannot move or even look around. You’re not sure if your body even exists here.

Suddenly, you see the terrifying deep blue of the sea, speckled by the lavender of the full spring fields and the light blue silhouette of a Thoron spell. All of this encircling a vast black abyss that enlarges when it peers into you.

You see the eye in all of its immaculate detail before the bloodshot sclera haunts you and the pupil constricts, framed by a furrowed, blonde brow. All this completing the desperate look in Dimitri’s eyes before you turned away to seal your fate.

A shudder ripples through the fractured realm that has taken place of your body. He seemed like he had called out to you, but the commotion on the battlefield kept the sound from reaching you. It’s chilling to you to consider that if you really had heard his voice, your resolve might have faltered on the spot.

* * *

His deep dark sorrow had once been a slow poison, but it eats him alive in your absence. He returns to Fhirdiad to muster forces and power to fight the Empire. Then accusation that he killed his own uncle for the throne is pinned upon him and he loses Dedue. The darkness spreads within him like spilt ink, soaking through everything that once made up the mask of the upstanding prince of before. With the both Kingdom and Empire looking to have his head, he goes into hiding at first, before deciding to return to the ruins of the monastery of happier times.

He stops trying to cover up his ugly truth and settles in far too easily into being ruthless in his endeavours to fight the Empire. To be able to crush Imperial loyalists with his bare hands gives him a sense of joy he comes to live for. His superior sense of smell makes it far too easy for him to locate their hiding spots. Soon, it becomes no secret how Imperial soldiers sent to scout Garreg Mach never make it back out.

You see the carnage for yourself when you return from your five years of the Empty Realm. The stench of death is thick throughout the monastery, with bodies scattered and littering the grounds. As you venture towards the academy courtyard, the sight of several decapitated heads stuck on the ends of wooden staffs gives you pause. It was as if someone was studying how to best preserve a head upon a pike.

All staked in front of the Black Eagles’ former classroom.

As you go towards the cathedral, broken lances and old blood stains feed into your worries. From what you can tell, the Imperial bodies are most concentrated in the path leading up to the Goddess Tower. The rot here is thick and unbearable, but you push forward, a sense of desperation eating at your soul.

The bodies are a little fresher. They are more and more mangled, carelessly kicked to the side in efforts to clear a passable path in the stairwell. As you make your way up, dawn is illuminating the level above, but you hear nothing aside from the echoing clack of your boots.

This is the last place of the monastery you have left to search. There’s no telling what you may find here…especially after you’ve seen the death that has befell this once holy place.

You had helpless visions of Dimitri as a mortal shadow of his former glory – skin and bones in the middle of the tower impaled by his own lance. How it ate at you, as his professor and maybe even a friend, that you couldn’t make it back in time to save him from himself.

You were truly fond of him. His bright demeanour, fighting so tirelessly to keep others at ease, to try to secure a better future for all of Fódlan. The darkness in his aura that drew your curiosity.

At first, you glance upon nothing but the rays of bright morning sun with a sense of both relief and defeat in your chest. Even now, you’re unable to shake the image of the decimated ruins of the royal prince of Faerghus that has burnt into your mind’s eye. Your eyes slowly go over all of the dusty crevices.

The last time you were up here, you shared a tender moment of awkwardness and hope with a young Dimitri on the night of the ball. You breathe in deeply and can remember the scent of him, the colour in his cheeks, and the gentleness of his voice. How you had sincerely wished as well, to be able to be together forever. How you didn’t know it would turn out like this.

And then you finally do see something. Something that causes the air within your lungs to solidify into stone.

There, behind the darkness of a pillar. A mess of blonde hair, long and unkempt, surrounded by a flurry of fur and a royal blue cape. His figure is hunched over. Black talons of armour cling desperately to his silver lance, unmoving. Surrounded by the stains of old blood.

An empty shell, a gust of wind away from crumbling into a pile of bones.

As you thought…perhaps not killed by his own lance, or even that of another’s, but still just as fearfully dead as your mind had so taunted you. You step closer, your lungs refusing to move any longer for fear of disturbing his resting place.

Your poor Dimitri. What have the last five years done to him? To the rest of your students?

A sudden flinch of his messy hair has you cursing this cruel world. The warmth of the sun pouring over you does not thaw the glacial void in your soul. He has grown to be much larger than he had been five years prior, with an air of darkness that has fully taken root into something that’s palpable in the stale air.

Your chest aches. You’d recognise that sulking aura anywhere, no matter what shape it takes.

Dead or alive.


	5. Nothing

He hasn’t eaten in the last few days. He couldn’t have. Not after seeing what he starts to see behind his eyelids every time he dares to close them more than a few minutes.

Your lifeless body in the middle of the Goddess Tower, the smell of putrefaction wringing his stomach and closing his throat with panic. He runs over to you, five years younger – five years weaker, and lifts you into his arms hurriedly, as gentle as he can. Your head lulls into his chest, your once lively lavender eyes now grey and glassy with the cloud of death.

“No, no, no, no, Professor, please—”

His voice is cut abruptly as his throat swells with sorrow, deforming his words into a desperate sob. He caresses your face gingerly, heart breaking at how cold your skin is and how still you are. Your lips are dry and slightly parted, revealing some old blood at the corner of your mouth that he brushes away with his thumb. To his horror, the blood comes off with some of your flesh and sticks to his glove.

His hold on you tightens. There’s a sickening crack and your head falls backwards further than ever intended, bouncing by the remaining elasticity of your skin. He scrambles to hold you together without breaking you further, but with your mouth agape like that it almost seems as if you’re trying to say something.

He listens closely, willing it to be true. To hear your voice once more.

“Sorry…so sorry,” you breathe, your pale lips dry and dead eyes still unfocused.

His heart swells wretchedly at the sound of your voice and he shakes his head as tears fall unrelenting from his eyes. A hint of your warm flowery scent is mingling in your scent of death and he is so dreadfully hopeful.

“P-Professor, don’t—”

All that pours from your white lips are apologies. His lips press against your cheek and he leans his forehead against yours, shoulders trembling with subdued sobs.

“You have nothing to be s-sorry for,” he whispers through his tears, “It should’ve been me! I should’ve been right next to you…protecting you. I promised you…”

A final, ragged sigh escapes you and your scent fades into that of death again.

“Gods, no, no, no, no, please! Please, not her…take me instead. Please…”

Moments pass, but there is nothing. No divine intervention, no gods to save you from your undeserving death. No dark magic in the world to implant his life force into your corpse. Nothing he can do for you, no matter how hard he studies, how hard he prays or how hard he fights.

Nothing.

As he holds you against him, an anguished cry rips through his being, drowning out the audible crumbling of your body. Dark blood oozes from your orifices and soaks through his clothes, covering him with death, yet still not allowing him the sweet release.

He knows it. Knows that death is far too easy of an escape for him. Knows that death is perhaps your sweet release from him.

Dimitri shakes the nightmare out of his head with a trembling sigh, gripping his lance so tightly it might break again. His body is crumpled into itself for warmth, shielded from the bitter morning chill by the grace of his cloak. He has long lost count of the days, but the weather never fails to remind him of the coming of spring, and the promise the Blue Lions made long ago, a reunion in five years’ time. He doubts anyone will return to the monastery after what has ensued.

Not without you. You, the heart of the Blue Lions. You, whose sincerity was so pitifully wasted on him. For some time, he had made his heart fill with you, too.

Perhaps he had really uttered a curse upon you on the night of the ball. How his young heart fluttered at the prospect of making a wish together with you. How recklessly he blurted out his desire to be together forever with you. How clumsily he tried to brush aside his sincere wish, for fear of your rejection and reprimand. But you had received it warmly, and it gave him hope that maybe…just maybe, you felt something for him, too.

But five years have passed with nothing so much as a whisper from you when the others were so loud in comparison. Even though Dedue did not speak, at least he was present. But not you. You were nowhere to be seen, heard, or found all these years.

He doesn’t blame you for your absence. He agrees that you are better off rid of him…if only he had been strong enough, smart enough, _better_ enough to prevent your death. The only reason he remains in this mortal world is to rid it of the poison of Edelgard’s Empire.

Perhaps then, you can imagine his disbelief when he hears you, smells you, _sees_ you come into the Goddess Tower. It shouldn’t be, not after all this time. What could have made your spirit come back, to him of all people? The sickening twist of elation and shame and anger chokes his intestines and fills his heart.

But you’re _really_ here. You’re here, smelling faintly of prickly pines and much of thawed earth. The scent of winter’s air is combed through your hair and the fibres of your clothes. It’s almost as if you’re freshly from the grave…but you’re so much more alive than he had dreamt you to be.

As much as he thinks you’re joining the throes of spectres in spurring on his purpose, he can’t help but to imagine you’re here to ease his pain. Already, he feels the heavy hands upon him drawing back.

After all this time, it’s difficult for him to really believe that you’ve truly returned. For all he knows, you’re just a ghost that has finally come to haunt him after all these years. Maybe he’s done something right recently, for you to finally return to him, spectre or not. But when he takes you hunting for rats in the monastery ruins, he leads the two of you straight into a field of bandits that you don’t think just the two of you can take on alone. You give him a doubtful look that he responds to with no more than an impatient huff.

“Come, let’s see how strong you’ve gotten.”

You stand by in awe, watching as he brashly engages three foes at once and wipes them out within moments, with a strength that you could not have imagined beholding. He was one of the strongest students you ever had, but _this_ …this chaotic, unstoppable tempest force before you was certainly not something you would’ve dreamt of him becoming. Fascinated, you fight close nearby him, observing with curiosity.

His broad frame moves far swifter than one would expect. His blows are incredibly devastating, crushing his opponent like nothing more than a berry underfoot. Be it with lance, arm, or foot, his body is accustomed to combat and killing. Far more than you thought he would be. You can only imagine what he’s been through, with what little you know.

The bandits advance toward the two of you and increase in number, giving you pause in your confidence of just how you’re going to successfully take down the lot. But Dimitri doesn’t seem worried at all, and continues moving forward despite your hesitance.

But he’s also not as surprised as you are to see Ingrid flying in upon the back of a radiant Pegasus. He sees Glenn sat comfortably behind her, looking lovingly at his fiancé as she glows with exhilaration to see her beloved professor and old friend once more.

Miklan appears first in the trees before a taller and broader Sylvain comes riding in expertly upon his steed, eager to fulfil the promise made five years prior. The fiery-haired young man now sports a more mature charm compared to that of his younger days, relief and words of jest for his companions. He and his brother fight harmoniously together, not a word spoken between them.

Swift deaths following the whistle of arrows announce the arrival of Ashe, with Lord Lonato and Christopher right behind him. He hits his marks with certainty, the look of a killer residing in the back of in his gentle green eyes when he focuses. Those same eyes light up with the joy of his youth when he emerges from his sniping spot and joins everyone below.

Felix wordlessly appears, cleaning up several of the bandit’s before their poisoned blades can touch anyone. He has always been of fewer words, but his eyes now hold a certain sadness when they fall upon the prince even if his greeting says otherwise.

Annette and Mercedes are close behind the stern swordsmaster, working together to take down hidden archers before they can target Ingrid and protect their comrades. They bring a brightness to the battle that fill your heart like a mother counting her cubs. But it’s difficult for you to notice Dedue’s stark absence. You decide to save your questions for later.

Dedue doesn’t return to the prince’s side until night time, when he’s finally alone in the cathedral.


	6. Touch

The Blue Lions students have returned with newfound strengths, and valuable, loyal connections throughout Fódlan. Efforts to secure, clean up, and supply the monastery are needed to accommodate the anticipated forces. Knowingly, you assign the clearing of the Goddess Tower specifically to Dimitri, and the courtyard to yourself.

You make a point to keep everyone away from the courtyard before you can clean up the remains of those Imperial soldiers. Felix is the first to find out, soon after securing his assigned wing of the monastery grounds. Upon hearing you rustling about and smelling the stench of death, he marches straight over with a scowl on his face.

“What in the gods’ name are you doing, Professor?” He growls, grabbing your wrist to keep you from collecting another rotting pike. “Picking up after that spoilt boar won’t teach him any humanity.”

“Making him come down here won’t be any better either.”

You test his grip with a wiggle but he stays firm, eyes locked sternly with yours. You can see the conflict swimming in his amber gaze, and you feel the heat from his hand even beyond his leather gloves. He grits his teeth and pulls you to the side, away from the death so close by.

“He needs to face what he’s done. You can’t protect him from himself forever.”

“I’ll be willing to bet he faces it more often than you think, Felix. He thought I was a ghost when he first saw me again.”

You can only hope Mercedes and Annette didn’t try to join him after their sweep of the cathedral. Dimitri didn’t stick around after the battle to catch up with anyone, and you had to stop him yourself to ask him to secure the Goddess Tower – to which he scowled at you for. Felix narrows his eyes at you and his grip softens a few moments before he releases you.

“Hmph. Don’t worry, I made sure no one tried to go to find him.”

A wave of relief washes over you and you nod, grateful for his interception. You know that in his heart he does wish better for his childhood friend, despite all the wounding things he may say. He’s one of the few who knew the boy prince from his most innocent days.

“Professor…”

Ingrid comes forth from the shadows of the corridor with a hand clenched before her chest and pain upon her face as she beholds the sight of the old blood beneath the remaining pikes in the ground.

“W-We’re secure from the sky as well,” she reports dutifully, forcing herself to look at you and Felix. You notice she’s blinking a little faster, uneasy. “The towns below will be notified of our return to Garreg Mach come tomorrow. We should be anticipating the first wave of allies coming in by the end of the week.”

“Thank you, Ingrid, we’ll be needing all the help we can get,” you say with a smile, watching as she relaxes slightly. But her eyes flit back to the pikes and her skin crawls with the scent of old rot.

“Um, may I ask…?”

“The boar did it.” Felix answers without missing a beat, taking a baleful of pikes lying on the side, “I’ll take these into the firewood area. Not touching the heads, though.”

Sylvain’s voice comes from the direction of the reception hall and startles poor Ingrid even more. You’d like to go reassure her before sending her off, but you have a feeling she won’t take well to you coming any closer with what you were trying to clean up.

“Let’s go, Ingrid,” Felix says as he passes her.

She takes a moment to unlock her knees and bows to you apologetically.

“I wish I could express how happy I am to know you’re both alright, Professor,” she says humbly, looking down at your feet as she struggles to find the words to say.

You smile kindly and nod. “As am I, to see that you’ve become such a fantastic lady knight.”

“You’re too kind, Professor. I still have much to learn. Thankfully I have the grace of your care once more,” she says with a sincere grin.

“And I, yours.”

Much relieved than before, she bows again and wishes you goodnight before hurrying off towards the direction of the reception hall. You finish cleaning up soon enough, and wipe the sweat forming at your brow whilst admiring the look of the classrooms from the edge of the courtyard again. Save for the grey of winter and the unkempt greenery, it looks just the same as you remember it last.

You allow yourself a few moments to finally go and greet your parents and tidy up their gravestone. You apologise for not bringing any flowers this time, but you find comfort in hearing your father’s stern voice saying how they’re happy just knowing you’re safe now. You tell them how the Millennium Festival is supposed to be this year…which would mean you’ve been gods’ know where for five.

“Thank you for waiting all this time,” you say softly, touching the ground where they lay, side by side. The grass is soft and full now, as if your parents had never spent a day apart.

A calm wind blows gently against your face as another ruffles your hair from a different direction. A smile warms your heart as the winds merge to usher you towards your quarters, where you still have to tidy before you can rest.


	7. Truly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the post- work week haze I left out a big chunk (.﹒︣︿﹒︣.) updated to add it in!

Since the Empire attacked, many of the dormitories have been raided. There are scars from the battle, and the damage of five years’ worth of abandon. Still, with some tidying up, they are perfectly habitable. With the influx of allies coming in, unclaimed quarters are easily filled and you’re relieved at the steadily growing liveliness within the monastery.

Your heart sinks with worry when you go to tidy Dedue’s room, which you don’t hesitate to mark as claimed. The other Blue Lions settle into their old quarters without much ado, but Dimitri doesn’t make any move to claim his. He takes refuge in the cathedral most of the time, standing motionless before the crumbled altar with an ancient regret etched upon his features.

He drives Felix insane. He can’t be reasoned with, and every other word out of his mouth is either telling others to get out of his sight or leave him be. He radiates a dark aura that everyone learns quickly not to engage, especially when word inevitably spreads of the mass grave that Mercedes was seen praying by the other day, a final collection of the Imperial soldiers and bandits that have tried to raid or take hold of Garreg Mach.

But he keeps standing there in the cathedral, big and brooding, unmoving like a statue. He stands there, lamenting over his countless inactions, over his countless sins. Now, with your return, the memories of academy days resurface to bring only more shame. He recalls how he punished himself countless times for greedily consuming your image in his deepest, selfish desires. The same punishments worsened ten-fold after he failed to protect you, steadily leaving scars on his body, concealed underneath his thick armour.

In the past, he tortured himself for the countless times of having your body, mind, and soul all for his own. For wrapping his body around yours, filling your every crevice and marking you, inside and out, like a feral beast in heat. For hearing your indecent voice echo throughout his room begging for him to be more gentle, telling him how much you love him between his heavy thrusts. For watching your eyes read him with loving adoration and feeling your kiss-swollen lips press again him over and over.

When he was younger, he had run into Mercedes at the cathedral nearly every time in attempts to atone, with the burden of sin evident in the dark circles under his eyes. She used to pray with him during their days at the academy, guiding him through his guilt and inadvertently to the image of you in his mind’s eye, adorning the regalia of the goddess, forgiving him for the unspeakable things he’s done unto you. Only for him to repeat them within the following week. He’ll never admit how many times he has seen those fantasies after you disappeared, especially after he started to see you dead whenever he closed his eyes.

Five years later, people of the damaged cathedral no longer greet him with anything beyond a nervous nod, conscious of keeping their distance. Mercedes, however, remains unchanged. She greets him like she always has, with a gentle smile and well-wishes, chattering on about anything that comes to her mind, leaving gracefully when he snaps at her to leave him be.

She comes to the cathedral regularly for her daily prayers, and is always welcome to the crowd. It reminds Dimitri of their younger days, when he was still living under that human skin. He is quite proud of how he had expertly manoeuvred in that façade. It was quite careless of him to show Felix his true colours during that one particular riot. But it was so _freeing_. After all of those years of trying to be a perfect prince, agonising over concealing his raw anger, to finally exert his full strength to speak louder than his words ever could.

Dimitri scoffs under his breath as he stands before the rumble. Felix has always been a perceptive one. But now he looks upon the broken prince with a look of pity that really grinds Dimitri’s guts into a paste of anger.

And _you_. You are just so persistent, aren’t you? Coming up to him whenever you feel like it and just staring. Your green gaze may be piercing, but it’s not enough to convince him how it’s a bad idea to charge at Edelgard the second he can see her.

Still, you come to say hello in the morning and bid him good night in the evening. But he actually finds it to be infuriating. It feels almost as if you’re mocking him, and he doesn’t think to control his voice when he speaks his mind.

“I thought I told you to _shut up and get out of my sight_.”

You continue to look straight at him, expressionless. A smile colours your face, and you nod, relenting.

“The wind is cold at night. Stay warm and try not to catch a cold.”

His threatening aura softens minutely when you turn to leave. While looking at your back retreating further away, for a split second he wonders if it’s the last time he’ll see you again. But he grits his teeth and returns to thinking of ways to right his past wrongs.

* * *

The nights in the week after your return, you’re unable to sleep as early as you have been with worries and frustrations plaguing you left and right. You’ve slept for five years straight in any case, so you figure a few nights up shouldn’t do much harm. You go for a night walks, breathing in the crisp spring air as you pull your heavy cloak around your shoulders. The Moon of the Great Tree is waning in the starry sky. You feel the ache in your chest as you stand before your parents’ grave. You’ve come ask them for their counsel, but the cold wind only whistles up weakly from the depths of the canyon below.

As you slowly wander back towards your quarters, you hear the scrape and clanking of a heavy metal body against the stone masonry further down the corridor. Soon after, you smell a cocktail of blood and sweat masking something a little more familiar. You know this scent as one that had once defined a prince.

Dimitri emerges from the darkness, his breath heavy and his body staggering from fighting off spectres for yet another night. He sees them between the columns, weaving in and out, crashing into him as he clings on to his lance for support. He sees his father, his stepmother, the countless knights and servants of the castle, all of the villagers and people of Duscur that he couldn’t save. Dedue. Your father. All of the people who he wishes to avenge, all these years later, for the rest of his life.

As he makes his way down the corridor, you remain in your spot behind a column, still as a statue. You listen to him crash about with his cloak dragging heavily behind him, like a ball and chain. He comes closer and closer – close enough so that you can finally pick apart his scent again. It’s become something more heady, with a hint of spice and a sweetness, like the raw cane sugar your father had once showed you as a child.

Strangely enticing. You don’t remember feeling this way the last you remember seeing him. At least, not so strongly. A part of you wants to just step out and make him look at you, to grab his hands and make him feel you, and know that you’re _real_. But you know better. You know he wouldn’t hesitate to strike you down in his current state.

You, another ghost of his past who didn’t know well enough to stay there.

He comes into your view as he passes with his head turning this way and that, following countless apparitions. He looks so agitated, so aggressive, like an animal cornered. Like a lion tormented and starved, wandering the plains without a pride.

Then his eyes find you.

Just the sight of you there, still and tranquil with your haunting gaze, is now enough drive the visions away for a time longer than he can remember last. You haven’t changed a bit since then. So much so that he feels like he’s your student again from five years ago, being scolded after getting caught wandering the monastery in the middle of the night, at times with Dedue trailing loyally behind.

He’s remembers how vulnerable he was to you – how trusting he was of you, his precious professor, with the pieces of his darkest secret. In that moment, he puts his back against the wall and slumps down to the ground, letting his lance drop noisily against the stone floor.

Finally, he sees you. The feelings of remorse rush into his lungs with every laboured breath and he’s betrayed by the conflicted tears that crowd his remaining eye. Neither of you can tell if he’s happy or sad to see you again, but you find your voice in his weakened aura.

“Dimitri,” you say softly, feeling the tremor in your throat right before you can stop yourself. It echoes pathetically in the corridor, as if his ghosts of you are pleading with him too.

He can’t possibly respond when he feels the creeping sensation of the echo his own voice had once bellowed into the sky, calling out to you desperately.

Five years ago. He’s there again, in the battlefield, watching you absorb the force of Thales’ attack. Watching you disappear off the edge of the earth and hearing your haunting scream as you fell to where no living hands of his could ever catch you. To where his only hope of seeing you again was in his darkest dreams, dead or dying in his arms.

He couldn’t believe he lost you. He couldn't believe how grievously powerless he was to protect you, even after all of those years fighting and studying to be stronger, to protect those in need, to shape the future he envisioned.

He didn’t realise how much he cherished those days at the monastery, surrounded by good friends, absorbing his studies and masking his wicked anger behind his carefully crafted demeanour. How much he cherished learning and fighting beside everyone, guided by your sure hand, finding ways to trust again and learn more about you. You did your best to understand him, and he could appreciate that wholly. And the first time you smiled in front of him was…downright mesmerising.

Right. Your smile. The smile he didn’t realise he could ever see. That soft smile lit up his days in a way he didn’t think was possible anymore for someone like him. He truly realised then, that there was more to the world than the fire of revenge deep in his gut and the blind passion to avenge.

You helped him realise that he genuinely wished to build a bigger, better world, not just pursue it in the hopes of revenge. His heart grew soft and warm and he let others in more easily, bonding with his classmates and people of the monastery alike, becoming more…human.

_But you let me die._

He freezes in the middle of his sudden reverie at the anguished whisper of your voice in his ear. His eyes focus on you again, across the corridor, unmoving as you observe him. Your skin, gleaming in the moonlight, deathly pale and almost appearing sunken, as if you’ve risen from your grave.

“Professor…I couldn’t get to you in time.” He mutters distantly. His hands clench into painfully tight fists, armoured digits digging through the leather gloves into his palms.

You look at him with sorrowful eyes, a hollow in your chest as you realise he sees you only as a ghost of his past. Your poor Dimitri. What horrors does he see that steal the light out of him and haunt him so?

“You did,” you say softly, coming closer towards him.

He doesn’t move, just watches you with his lonesome azure gaze. You kneel before him, putting a hand on the cold armour of his knee, feeling him jolt at your touch.

“Your eyes met with mine and they saved me.”

He stares at you blankly for a moment as the part of him desperate for salvation starts to take comfort in your words. But quickly, he recoils from your warmth as if it burns him. He breaks eye contact as he turns his face away from you, clenching his jaw as his mind races.

You are just a ghost. A ghost that he’s gotten so desperate to see. Perhaps the gods decided to be merciful and let you appear before him once more. A ghost of his dear professor who he let die before him. Another part of him is adamant, convinced that he can’t possibly allow himself to believe you’re truly back, lest he risk losing you once more and fully relinquish the little sense he has remaining.

If any.

“Dimitri.”

Your soft voice startles him, and your gaze holds his with conviction. The rotting spectre of you he sees whenever he closes his eye isn’t there anymore. Nor are those who he lost in the Tragedy of Duscur, those lost after the Battle of Garreg Mach, or your father. Not even the ever-silent ghost of Dedue remains, looking to him with his hardened gaze.

All he sees is you. You look the same as the day he last remembers you truly alive, from the glow of your pale skin, to the concern swimming in your focused gaze.

The sudden silence is overwhelming. No more are the voices that have plagued him for so many years in this moment. No more are their taunts and incessant ramblings in his ears.

All he hears is you. The echo of his name upon your lips. The careful, calculated breaths you take. Even the loud thuds of his heart pounding in his ears.

A reminder he’s still alive.

He can’t remember the last time he felt this way…almost normal. Looking into your eerily green eyes, he recalls the day the Blue Lions almost lost you to the darkness that Solon tried to commit you to. He recalls how you had sliced through the sky so surely, just as how you charged toward the beasts attacking the Immaculate One to protect Garreg Mach.

His fearless, reckless professor. You hold out one of your small hands to him once more. He sees again how you, too, are marred by battle and rough with callouses and scars innumerable. You, too, have had a hand in doling out the price of war and you, too, have personally paid it. It shows in your piercing stare, even if your face doesn’t show it.

Yet, you still offer him your hand. You still kindly share your warmth with him without a second thought. You still see him worthy of kindness, even when he himself does not. Without any further hesitation, he takes your hand in his, shocked by the force of which you pull him up with. Stunned by the brightness in your eyes that have always been shimmering with hope.

How could he have forgotten?

The spectres don’t return when he remains with you, or anywhere near you. An overwhelming wave of tranquillity washes over him when you take his hand in yours and he follows your lead without question. His senses are mesmerised by the clear, crisp sound of the gravel crunching beneath both of your feet, the shuffling of your clothes against your body. The familiar scent of you wafting freely in the wind. The sounds of winter’s final thaw around the monastery. He follows wordlessly, charmed.

Only when the door to your quarters shuts behind the two of you does he regain his senses.


	8. Visceral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o))) time for the smuts!

“What’s the meaning of this?” He demands in a dark tone, ripping his hand away from yours and towering over you.

“I want you to be near me.” You say simply, genuinely, looking deep into his eyes. Though, to be honest, you’re not entirely sure yourself.

He narrows his eye at you, his lip curled in irritation as the fire of fury crawls up into his throat.

“What, so you can keep an eye on me? Make sure I don’t go off killing the rest?”

“No. I just want to be next to you. That’s all.”

He scoffs, drawing further away from you, his relaxed hands turning into fists again. The emptiness reminds him that he left his lance in the corridor, and he almost can’t believe it. After all these years he has always held a weapon, or at least had one nearby. What kind of twisted spell did you cast to make him forget such a simple thing? He feels too naked here, too powerless again.

And far too tempted.

“…I’m leaving.”

Without hesitation, you reach out quickly and catch his wrist, to which he snaps his head to you with his expression irate and dangerous. That anguish of darkness within his gaze is lit up by a low, burning flame that exists deeper within.

But maybe that’s just you being hopeful.

“Let go.” He snarls, flicking your hand off of him and turning to face you fully. He comes forward in one swift stride, cornering you against your dresser. “I’m sure you know what this can be interpreted as, no matter what your true intentions.”

His aura is intense and menacing, like an animal on the defensive. But you can sense the excitement emanating from him, as if he’s closed in on a hunt. You feel it, too. You reach for his hand and grab two of his fingers tightly in your grasp before he can flinch away too far. It’s remarkable how much bigger his hands are now, compared to when he was younger. So much time has already passed…you’d be damned if you let any more pass you idly by. Your lips part with a meaningful inhale and you speak honestly.

“I know. So stay.”

* * *

Conversation doesn’t flow very well. His explosive electric aura seems to have collapsed in on itself, as he sits in your desk chair maintaining a respectable distance from you.

“Professor…”

He speaks quietly with a solemnness to his tone that you can’t quite understand. After some more silence, you get up from the edge of the bed to get closer.

You’re not that much taller than him even when he’s sitting. He lets you take his face in your small hands, rubbing your thumb gingerly across the edge of his eyepatch as you feel his entire body shift suddenly above yours. All of his magnificent muscles moving in unison to express his discomfort. Certainly surprising after gods know how long of surviving on whatever meat and weeds there are around here.

But you digress. You are certain your answering smile is reassuring enough…but in the dim candlelight it almost seems as though he’s dissatisfied with that response. His body becomes more tense and you can almost see the thick curtain of doubt and guilt that obscures him.

His silence feels dense, yet hollow.

He looks deeply into your eyes, searching desperately for any sign of reluctance – any reason to stop and to force him to leave. But your mask remains as impenetrable as it has always been. You brush some of his long blonde hair back so that you can see his forehead, permeated with worry and restraint that manifests as a permanent furrow of his brow. His left eye is sunken with insomnia, a dark circle that seems as if it could penetrate deep down to the bone.

“Sorry for making you stay. It’s alright if you don’t want to,” you hum softly, beholding him with a gentle gaze, idly smoothing down strands of stray hair.

That’s it. That’s the morsel of forgiveness his soul has ached for, for so long. After all of those years suffering from the tortures he sees in his waking moments and when he’s nestled within the infinite realms of his twisted dreams. He had forgotten how your battle-worn hands have always been warm and kind, making it all the more easier for him to follow your inherent glow. He had forgotten how you taught him to stride for his greatest ambitions and how to embrace his deepest fears.

He recalls how he had fought alongside you without question. His lance and fists and rage were surely yours, and he would’ve even so much as to followed you to the ends of the earth. You, who stunned him with your first smile, and warmed his heart with the sincerity within your soul. You, who snuffed out the flicker of his life’s flame with your abrupt disappearance.

And yet, here you are. Here you are, where he can really touch you and you don’t show any signs of disappearing. You still offer your warmth to him without hesitance, despite all the hell and abuse he’s given you. Despite all the times he has seen you dead.

Before the memories can cripple him further, he lunges at you, taking your lips against his in a hard, yearning kiss, paying no mind to the rough stubble of his upper lip scraping against you. It burns as your mouths move together, awkward and starved, like a pair of new-born animals.

The two of you land onto the bed, where he takes your wrists in a crushing grip and slams your arms above your head. The movement pushes a sharp gasp of surprise from your lips the moment he pulls away to look at you. The blush on your face is undeniable with the heat it’s now radiating, but you see no hint of colour on his features aside from his piercing gaze. The deep blue of the sea roars in his iris and you wonder if you’re drowning.

That’s the look that cracks through your mask. The look that you saw before your long slumber. The look of murderous intent, accusatory and damning. How could you have been gone for so long? How could you have gone on alone, selfishly, to have left your students to fend for themselves after sacrificing yourself right in front of them? You knew damn well they loved you, valued you, trusted you. How could you have left them so broken and battered, to run from the enemy with their tails tucked between their legs and the darkness brewing in their cores?

Your eyes water with the bitterness of guilt, relief and sorrow. You can barely even begin to imagine the pain and suffering they endured through the years, before, during and after you. They trusted you so much. They put their lives on the line with you. How could you abandon them in such a pivotal moment?

The sharp pang of shame hits you harder that you thought it would. This is what you were supposed to feel before you let yourself stay in the direct strike of Thales’s spell.

His lips catch yours once more, and the kiss shakes the tears out from your dull eyes.

“No use crying now,” he murmurs against your cheek, before pulling away to focus on removing his own armour before removing yours. You lie there as your ears fill with silent tears, watching him take control of the situation, roughly relieving both of you of your clothes, completely taking your breasts into his hands. The thickened callouses on his palms graze your soft skin in a manner that you never fathomed you could appreciate before. They make your hairs stand on end and send arrows of fire into your lower gut.

Your nipples grow taut just with a light touch, easily attracting the attention of his greedy fingers. They pull and tweak and rub at you, as you try your best to hold back your voice. You feel the dampness between your legs when he takes off your pants. His callouses scrape against the sensitive skin of your thighs and you tense up as his toughen palms work their ways back up.

“Do you regret it yet?” He asks vaguely, looking up at you tauntingly before taking one of your nipples into his mouth, shocking you with the fire that blooms in your gut.

You don’t know. Of what to feel or what to think. You’re not sure if it’s his touch that you find too electric for comfort or if it’s this new side of him that you’re not used to. Your first instinct is to rip away from him…but you also find it so curiously alluring. Although it scares you, you want more to delve further into this knot in your body that tightens with every breath.

You understand how protected and naïve you really are. After all, all you had known was the stoic love of your late father and the comradery of the mercenaries, the mockery turned fear of your foes. All you needed to know was how to fight and coexist with others, nothing of what it means to exist beside someone else, skin to skin without the protection of your battle armour. Such behaviour was not uncommon of some of the mercenaries, but it simply did not apply to you when you never felt such desire. Your father had protected you from it all, having only alluded to such things when he told you about his love for your mother.

Dimitri seems to know when your mind wanders, even now. The look in your eyes dulls when you think too much, and you aren’t responding to his touch as well as you had been a few moments ago. A flare of anger rises in his gut and he must bite down on his tongue to quell it.

He bites down hard enough on the side of your breast for you to be alarmed. Your sudden stillness brings him back to his senses and he worries he’s hurt you. The feeling of his tongue apologetically smoothing over your bitten skin doesn’t sting, but the heat that radiates from it adds to your body’s soft blush.

A dark voice in the back of his mind warns him that if anything he does displeases you, you might vanish for good. But to finally be able to behold you once more is far too much for him to hold back from. He fights with himself to stay steady as his touch fluctuates between being gentle and being harsh, completely unpredictable to you. He looks into your lively green eyes, finding a gentle reassurance that you’re really, truly, here.

_Finally, you’ve come back to me…_

A wave of calm possesses him. He comes up to meet you with slower, more passionate kisses. His stubble doesn’t cut you like it did before, his lips heavy and languid against yours. He kisses you everywhere, from your lips to your cheeks, over to your eyes and ears, up to your forehead and down to your neck. Every kiss leaves a hot, damp mark on your skin. Every kiss, every caress now feels like you’re being worshipped like the Goddess Herself. You briefly wonder if Sothis is blushing as much as you are. 

He moves with purpose, exploring you thoroughly bit by bit. He nuzzles his nose behind your ear and into your hair, drawing in slow, deep breaths as he commits your sweet, calming scent to his memory. He wraps a chiselled arm around you as the other hand trails down your body.

He traces over your collarbones before taking your breast into his palm, groping it fully before teasing your nipple with a brush of his fingers. He travels further to go over your muscles and draw a circle around your navel. His callouses then scrape over your hip before he roughly grabs a handful of your ass and pulls you closer against his own hardened body.

His excitement is astoundingly clear. It feels imposing and hot as it presses against your inner thigh like a foreign limb. He finds himself strangely patient, You find yourself suddenly nervous and hesitant to look down at it.

You barely notice how his wandering hand now reaches around you to find the core between your legs. When his fingers find the webbing of slick dripping out, surprise shoots through your body. You never knew you could produce this much of it at once. He looks to you, carefully gauging your response as he presses down and begins to probe around.

His moistened fingers glide over the sensitive nub situated further forward, electrifying you with pleasure. Your eyes widen with a colourful intensity sparkling in the candlelight, and your lips part with a gasp. You’ve not felt such a thing before…perhaps a hint of it whenever your pants rubbed against your shorts in a certain way. Never has it felt so obviously sensual. He is quick to understand this as another erogenous spot for you, and deliberately rubs at it.

You fear you’ll melt.

“W-wait,” you gasp, pushing against him.

You catch a glimpse of his erection while you wriggle about in his one-armed embrace and _by the gods, who designed that?_ Why does it look like that? Such a thing is supposed to go _where?_ Even just the shadow of it is frightening.

Your eyes snap up to his face, flustered and shocked. You have so many questions, so many more concerns. His expression stays firm even when he hums in contemplation, easily keeping you close against him as his fingers continue their flurry of attention to your clit. He watches closely as you squeeze your eyes shut and lean your forehead against his chest, filling his lungs with your scent when he cranes down to bury his face in your hair.

Despite being hyperaware of his touch, you’re still taken by surprise when a long, thick finger enters you without any resistance. Soon after, another joins in, caressing your walls and brushing every rib of muscle inside of you. This is too much…you feel intoxicated, with your entire pelvis threatening to melt with each pump of his fingers.

Aside from the sounds of your laboured breathing, the squelching from slick is particularly embarrassing. His own breathing gradually gets heavier as the strain of his excitement comes to reach its limit. The tip has by chance encountered a bit of your slick, allowing it to glide against your smooth thigh…and when you squeeze your legs together, squirming with his fingering, his limit breaks.

Pulling away abruptly, he licks his fingers clean of your essence while he settles himself over you, nestled between your legs. He sourly regrets the inability to taste in such a moment, but at least he can appreciate the scent. Sweet and acidic, flowery and heady. A scent he has never encountered before – another detail that’s unique to you.

He grabs the flesh of your sides roughly, pulling you against him. The wicked hunger in his gaze is intensifying rapidly and you feel a cold sweat down your back when his member presses firmly against you, impatient.

No escape.


	9. Consumed

Dimitri’s broad frame towers over you, his chiselled musculature framed by the low candlelight, moving with each strained breath. His hands are secure on your waist, gripping your flesh with bruising pressure and keeping you in place. Your magnificent body is spread out before him, offering everything as if you’re a sacrifice to this maddened beast. You already bear his marks upon your flesh. All that’s left is to make more marks, _inside_ and out – to make your body yearn solely for his.

There’s no way he can stop himself now. And neither can you.

“You are _mine_ now,” he snarls darkly.

He pushes your legs wide open while digging his nails harshly into the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs. The head of his member teases your opening, sliding easily against you with your generous amount of slick. You draw in a sharp breath through clenched teeth when he pushes deeper into you, inching further inside with each rough thrust. At first, you can barely stand the sensation of burning and fullness where you never thought was supposed to be breached. As he reaches deeper, he fills a part within you that floods your nerves with shimmering strikes of ecstasy, rendering trembles throughout your body.

Desperate to feel grounded, your fingers grip tightly around his wrists, but his skin is impenetrable and his gaze is absolute. He continues, each thrust hitting deeper than the last as he really breaks you in. He holds you against him, smothering your panic into his solid warmth. You breathe him in and recall the familiar scent of his that you so admire.

As exciting as this is, the thought that you cannot truly reach him in this moment frightens you. He looks methodical, no hint of the desperation you so feel, just doing this for the sake of it. Just so he can claim you as his.

All because you asked him to let you in.

When he goes quiet like this you can barely recognise him anymore. You knew from the moment you first met him all those years ago he was troubled, yet you could never have imagined the darkness was so deeply entrenched within him. So much so that he often seems to have lost all the light he used to have, even if it was a mask. At least back then, he had control over it…until Edelgard revealed herself.

You snake your arms around his, holding whatever you can of him in this distant position in an attempt to connect with him. He continues glaring down at you, focused on something else as his hips move in a constant, harsh rhythm. His skin is getting cold without the cover of his armour and cloak. It’s moments like these where you wonder if _he’s_ the one with the heart that’s not beating.

But he _is_ focused on you. His heart feels like it’s about to burst out of his chest. He’s trying his best not to crush you in his arms so he pulls back to cage you underneath him. He’s trying his best not to break your bones by thrusting into you too hard but you feel so good he can barely control himself from just _indulging_ and…

No. He can’t do that. He can’t _think_ like that. Not here. He can’t think back to all of the nightmares he had of you, broken and blue, alone and dead in the middle of the shore at low tide, scavengers picking at your cloudy green eyes and nipping the flesh off of your bones. Cold and dull in the Goddess Tower, where he holds your broken body helplessly in his arms. He can’t keep seeing your ghost haunting him only when he closes his eyes, touching him with ice cold hands, his soul telling him it’s his fault that you died.

He can’t think like that when you’re here, in the flesh, warm and soft and vulnerable underneath him, responding to his touches every which way. He could have never dreamt up your sweet expressions, restrained moans, the feeling of your body against his. Not even with all those countless nights of fantasy, desperately in need for your touch.

Not even close.

“Byleth,” he breathes softly, forcing his pace to slow down and lowering his face closer to yours. He can feel it when your chest blooms with surprise at the sound of your name, when your walls twitch around him within. He doesn’t say anything more for fear of shattering this moment, letting the sound of his mature voice hang from tip of his tongue. His hips grind against you and he reaches a part of you that you didn’t know existed before.

You can’t respond to him. Your voice won’t let you say anything coherent, only letting by your heavy breaths and shy little moans. Instead, your dripping wetness answers for you, with yet another release of slick. The rest of his restraint leaves him after he feels your body’s clear reply.

One of his hands circle tightly around your waist to bring you up with him as he comes to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The other wraps securely around the back of your neck, his strong fingers finding purchase against your carotids. His nails dig into your flesh when he slams his hips up into yours and you see stars upon impact.

You can’t recognise the voice that rips itself from your throat.

The white hot pain of his clawing at you, the muffled sensation of the pressure upon your neck, and the mixture of pain and pleasure from his member stirring up your insides. Everything is coming down on you all at once and you don’t know how to make sense of it. Your strong, battle-born hips are now softer and malleable, gladly receiving the harsh attention of his hips and his greedy hands. He leans you back and cranes himself forward into you to fill his mouth with a bite of your breast and toy with your sensitive nipple.

Nothing in your life could have prepared you for this. Nothing from the swing of a sword, the bend of a bow, or launch of a lance could have taught you that another’s touch could very well cripple you just the same. Instead of clouding your mind with pain, Dimitri easily occupies you, inside and out, obscuring whatever reason lies before you in favour of the delectable poison of pleasure. You know him well enough to discern he’s probably holding back most of his strength, yet is still managing to feather you with bruises.

And gladly, you let him. Unfiltered pleasure builds in your gut with each rough thrust, at times spilling out squirts of slick that further deteriorates his self-control. Your pelvis is noticeably sore from his punishing pace, but you can’t deny the peaks of ecstasy each time your bodies reconnect at your deepest point.

You’ve reached your limit long ago. Just when you think you can’t possibly take any more, his rhythm starts to slow, his hips hitting heavy against you with a different purpose. The growing fireball in his core is settling, ready to mark you completely. Heart racing, he holds you impossibly close to bury his face in the crook of your neck. Sharp teeth bite down at the tender flesh, muffling his low, amorous groan. A breathless whimper emerges from you, signalling your undoing right as one more meaningful thrust plants his length deep within to pour his essences within you.

By the Gods, does it pour.

He pulsates within you, emptying every last pent-up drop into your ready womb. It can be felt thickly blanketing the sensation of his fullness within you, dripping out beyond your opening. Your bodies are damp with sweat, sticking and gliding over each other as you fill your lungs with ragged breaths. You pet his hair languidly, stars still in the corners of your eyes, limbs creaking with exhaustion.

He remains in position, tonguing the deep mark on your neck even as his body slowly comes down from the high. More of his essence leaks out of you as his length softens, pooling on the covers below. A part of him is displeased to know that there is only so much will stay inside of you. If only he could stay firmly connected with you to ensure as much of his seed ventures into your womb, like a beast and its mating knot.

If only.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! This is one of the first scenes I wrote, and just gradually built on it from there...the Dimileth thirst is real..


	10. Distracted

Time seems to have really stopped, the stars in the sky frozen in the heavens as you find a moment of respite. A hot breath blows through your hair when he lies down onto the bed. His strong arms wrap around you possessively, rubbing the salt of your sweat into the raw marks on your skin. You can’t find the energy to move and can only stay splayed on top of him, limp. His length remains full enough to stay fixated inside of you like a deep root, savouring the sporadic clenching of your walls.

“We need to wash.”

It takes a great amount of strength to even crack a squint at him. Every cell inside of you is begging for rest. It’s unbelievable how sore your body is to even do just that, let alone to sneak over to the bathhouse. Your breathless voice is thick with sleep, but that sultry rasp in your groan sends a bolt of lust through him.

“Mm…now?”

“…”

He absorbs your unwilling expression, taking in each soft, dark eyelash that frame the radiance of your hooded green eyes, going on to memorise the curves of your nose and the subtle pout of your kiss-swollen lips. His greedy azure gaze drinks in the sight of your strong, slender figure glued close against him with the delicious dew of sweat, spending time to revel in every savage maroon mark upon your skin. A genuine wave of satisfaction crashes within his navel knowing all of these marks are _his_. He grits his teeth to subdue the urge to make even more after noticing how you flinch when he traces a finger against the savage love bites on your neck.

A low hum rumbles in his chest as he considers the significance of your current state. He’s seen you in perilous and exhausting situations too many times to count, and you’ve never been one to tire or express pain easily, not even five years later. A hot spark of pride spreads in his chest in knowing he can draw out these rare feelings for you than most.

But even so, if living wild has taught him anything, it’s to keep the body clean as much as possible. If you’re so spent that you can’t even get yourself to the bathhouse, you should probably wipe off at least. He looks around, surveying the surroundings without disturbing you atop of him. To your surprise, he settles with using the sleeve of his nearby undershirt, wet with the water from the pitcher on your nightstand.

“Wait, no, I’ll go wash!” You fret, trying to stop his hand from getting closer. In your struggle, more of his seed pours out of you and leaks onto his thigh, causing him to stiffen. You could never have predicted he would release… _this_ much.

“Don’t move,” he commands sternly, proceeding to clean you up as he intended to. His shirt is rough against your raw flesh and you wince a little. A small groan escapes you at the sensation and you dread the feeling of having to walk all the way to the bathhouse with this unimaginable soreness between your legs, and across your body. You can tell there’s still more inside.

There’s a strange feeling in being aroused at how much he released into you. Is it usually this much for men? Before the Officer’s Academy, you recall hearing from some female mercenaries about such a thing being mainly cumbersome for a nomadic woman. You’ll have to read up on this sometime. Perhaps Manuela would have literature on these functions in the infirmary somewhere.

The heat from his stare brings you back into the moment. He keeps his gaze locked embarrassingly tightly to your leaking core, focused on catching all that’s coming out while one hand pulls your folds open. You wouldn’t have thought he would be keen to stay with you afterwards, much less to help clean you up. Dazed with the afterglow and exhaustion, you stare at his profile as he tends to you silently.

His features have hardened over the years, growing much more defined. The lines of his cheekbones and jaw are now so sharp they could cut flesh. His dusty blonde hair has gotten so long, tangled and a little uneven, where he cut out knots too complicated and cumbersome to deal with. Your hand comes to brush some strays away but he tears himself from your reach before you can fully brush them away from his leather eyepatch.

He looks at you with a dark, threatening gaze, not needing words to tell you to stay away. The silence thickens, only being softened by the sounds of waking birds. He finally gives a frustrated scoff, pushing you off of him to retrieve his armour.

_No, wait_.

Without much thought, you broke through your body’s groggy aches to reach out and put your hand on his broad, muscular shoulder. He turns his head to glare at you with his face settled in that icy scowl that wrinkles his nose, narrows his eye. He’s looked like this since you saw him again in the Goddess Tower, save for when his features turned into something else entirely as you shared your bodies.

“Don’t touch me.” He snaps, shaking your hand off.

His change of attitude doesn’t sit well with you. Your grit your teeth and wrap your arms around his waist, pressing your naked body to his, prepared to counter him should he turn on you. He freezes immediately at the contact, fighting against his reflexes to keep from reacting against you. It’s palpable in the way his muscles harden and ripple in disagreement. The clear feeling of your breasts pressing against his back is giving way to more scandalous thoughts, to say to least. His groin throbs with a rush of lust and he blushes, radiating heat throughout his body.

It shouldn’t be this easy to distract him.

“Professor,” he says in a low voice, cautiously putting his hands over your own to pry your hold from him as gently as he can, “let me go.”

His fingers hurt against you, too strong for you to keep hanging on for long before he frees himself. You decline sternly as you rub the tip of your nose to the different scars across his back. He stays quiet, feeling your sweet blessings against his mottled skin. His eye flutters as he focus is shifted to the feathery sensation. If he allows it, it almost feels like the scars are healing.

No. He can’t. Of all the people suffering, not him. Not he who has caused so much suffering himself. Not he who can only rest once he has Edelgard’s head on a pike outside of the gates of Enbarr.

Fucking you is just a distraction for him. Fucking you effectively killed that stupid boy who held you on a pedestal so high, and showed him that you, too, were irrevocably soiled by his own hands. Deep in the seat of his soul he hears the wretched howls of a young prince going mad, cursing all of the versions of himself for carving their marks into you.

But Dimitri knows better by now, that no matter what sweet gentle love his young self would’ve thought he could give you, it would’ve only been a matter of moments before his true self would show. If anything, he saved both of you the trouble of finding this out much later.

“I’ll ask you one more time, Professor.” He says dangerously, clenching his fists. The muscles throughout his body tighten in unison.

His aura is possessed with a suffocating darkness, to the point that the feeling of your skin pressing against his becomes uncomfortably prickling. Still, you focus on relishing in his warmth, missing all that contributed to his focused occupation of you not too long ago. You didn’t know how much you really needed that, and you can’t let him leave and be done with it all just like this. Especially not after all this time, even if those 5 years felt like just a long sleep to you.

“I don’t want to,” you whisper, squeezing him tightly, closer against you.

He breathes deeply through his nose in efforts to steady himself. Your words call to him like a siren he can’t hope to ignore. How can he resist indulging when you’re so welcoming? Just once more to show you he’s not the same person you once knew. Just once more to show the remaining sliver of his old self the immoral side of his precious professor.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says with a growl, effortlessly removing himself from your hold and turning around to push you into bed.

You fall on your back with a gasp that he chases with an open kiss – wet, languid, and greedy. As the fire of lust burns upon your lips, your tongue enters his mouth, brushing against his palate and eliciting a low groan that purrs into the kiss. The excitement is aggressive, shooting knots of desire into your guts. His fingers paint bruises into your skin as he indulges in his visceral instincts once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience~ work has been hectic recently at the hospital. Please stay safe and healthy! Stay hydrated! More smut to follow soon ^.~ thank you for reading and for your feedbacks!


	11. Insatiable

He pounds into you with a thunderous force that makes your entire body fluctuate between seizing with pain and relaxing with waves of ecstasy. You feel it all, magnified inside your core despite the ache in your lower spine. One of his hands holding your arms behind you, your breasts shuddering with each blistering impact against your hips, fracturing the longstanding security of invulnerability you’ve so carefully built up.

Your panic quickly dissolves when he grabs a handful of your chest, rolling a tender nipple between his to occupy your mind once more with sharp blossoms of pleasure. The sound of the your sturdy hips colliding fills the room, accented by your uncontrollable gasps of surprise and breathless moans. Both of you far too lost in the ravishing damage he’s dealing you to be embarrassed if anyone should notice the ruckus during their patrols.

He then grips your ass harshly, sinking his nails into your skin and squeezing a squeal out of you as he savagely bites the scars on your shoulder. His teeth sink in, rubbing harshly against muscle and bone…radiating a unexpectedly twisted satisfaction through you. Your resulting airy moan sends shivers down his spine, invigorating him ten-fold. He pulls back to drink in the sight of your sultry, relaxed jaw, your gaze hazy and lustful and focused solely on him. Furrowed brows pull the rest of your elegant features into the most delectable, desperate look. Pleading, almost. He leans forward against you again, biting and sucking at your neck with a vigour as if he was seeking to mark you for life.

His mouth waters at the scent of you, flowery and homey, enhanced with your rising temperature. _Fuck_ …the things he would give to taste you, _all_ of you. His head spins at the irresistible feeling of your body flush against his, gliding with the generous layer of sweat between the two of you. Your voice sings to him a song he never imagined could have existed. Your touch tells him a story he doesn’t need words to understand. Your kisses and choked sighs heal the invisible wounds he never knew he had.

How is he so depraved of you? It’s infuriating how he just can’t get enough. He should’ve been satisfied with you brief touch upon his knee, with even just seeing you and hearing your voice again after too many years without.

He must indulge. Pulling you with him as he lays down on his back, he cranes his neck so that he can see your beautiful body moving with his and the effects of the cool night air nipping at your skin. Your nipples grow taut quickly, sensitive to his touch as he gropes your breasts with bruising greed. His length reaches deep into your weeping wet core and hits a part nestled inside that has you biting your lips bloody to hold back a desperate cry.

Again and again and again. He knows that’s the spot and he aims for it with each meaningful thrust. His fingers deftly rub, pinch, and tweak at your swollen nipples, sending wave after wave of ecstasy throughout your worn-out body that now shudders weakly with each climax. You whimper as your walls clench desperately around him and he relishes in the sensation.

Only he can make you feel this way. Only he can kiss you so deeply and make your core drool as it does.

You are his, and his alone.

He sinks his teeth into the tender flesh at the base of your neck once more, sucking long and hard before releasing you, only a string of saliva now connecting your skin to his lips. The mark is angrily red and purplish, enclosed by savage red teeth marks that break through skin. He runs his rough tongue over it soothingly, subduing the pain to a dull throbbing. All the while he fucks you like a madman, one hand on your breasts as the other rubs at your clit, with his hips slams into your ass at a rate you can’t keep track of anymore.

He relinquishes his seed in a series of powerful thrusts, moving one hand to press your hips flush against his as he empties it all within you. Your mind goes blank as euphoria claims you once more, your body milking every last drop of his essence from him.

The exhilaration of reaching your undoing together is truly something else.

You move to roll off of him when he grabs your chin and secures you for a hungry kiss. All while he remains full and hard within you, some final pulses of seed escaping into your overcrowded canal. With this, he moves easily, rubbing against every oversensitive crevice that begs for rest.

“Wa, wait…a moment,” you plead breathlessly, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. With a low chuckle, he reaches down to grasp your inner thighs with an iron grip that you’re sure is making you bleed. As you groan in pain, he nips at the shell of your ear and rolls his hips against your ass in slow, gentle thrusts. His breath is hot against your skin as his low, dark voice draws chills from the base of your spine.

“I _warned_ you, Professor.”

He snarls lustfully, burying his nose into your hair as his hips carry on fucking you silly. With the sight of your breasts moving freely, he can’t help but tease their reddened, ripened peaks. Each brush of his calloused palms, each flick of his roughened fingers riddles you with desire. Your body can only take in his passion, your weakened moans sultry and breathless and driving him crazy. How obscenely sensitive you’ve become.

He hooks his arms underneath your knees, lifting them up against your torso and splaying you wide open as he easily makes his way over to the counter by the windows.

“W-we’ll be heard,” you protest, unable to hold back your moans as his hips continue their furious assault even while on his feet.

His breath tickles your ear with an arousing dark chuckle. He props one of your legs up onto the side of the counter, giving you a moment to breathe as his hips slow down.

“It’s not as if they haven’t already.”

You take your bottom lip between your teeth and turn your face away from the window reflexively, ducking your head towards your shoulder.

He’s right…you yourself can’t count the number of late nights you’ve heard the inhabitants of Garreg Mach and their trysts through these open-air windows. After attempting to ask Annette back then, you quickly understood it wasn’t supposed to be something casually brought up in conversation when she nearly imploded with embarrassment. You were even more taken aback when Mercedes came to her rescue and told you everything you needed to know…in addition to some things you didn’t.

And now, here you are, making the same ruckus.

With full access to your profile, he takes his time tasting the shell of your ear, grazing it with his sharp teeth. The sound of his hot, heavy breaths and quiet groans rumble against your back and occupies your thoughts.

You lose track of time far too easily, even when the light of morning spills into the room and mutes the glow of your candles. Your voice only comes as small raspy moans, and he seems to favour masking his own sounds with a mouthful of you.

He slams too many powerful, purposeful thrusts into you, relinquishing his seed inside far too many times to keep count. Knot or no, he’s determined to make you his even after exhausting his essence within you. Your combined fluids pour out, running down your thighs and onto his excessively, so much so that it doesn’t take long until his cotton shirt alone isn’t nearly enough to clean up the mess he’s made of you.

Your sheets, too, are beyond ruined. Soaked thoroughly with sweat, seed and slick, there’s no way you can pass this off to the laundry shift without attracting too much attention. You’ll have to bring this to the stream to wash late in the night, away from prying eyes.

“I’ll take these,” Dimitri says, gathering up your sheets after getting dressed, “take the ones from my room, if they’re still there.”

A feverish blush takes over your face as you imagine the scent of him, something gentle with a whisper of sweetness, aged and kept for all these years. His scent has certainly matured since then, to what is now a heady, warm musk that you’re even quicker to recognise in the wind.

You come to your senses when the door closes behind him, sheets and all, leaving you naked on the bare mattress, clutching your bath towel.

Gods...what have you done?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your patience! I had written 3 different versions/views of the day after and was having the time of my life trying to stitch and sew the parts together into a coherent chapter. Blue Lions are starting to sniff out some ~scandal~

Sylvain knew something felt different after seeing you and Dimitri together again.

A younger prince had a habit of staring at you, especially when you weren’t looking. Paired with how you tend to intensely hold your gaze with others, it made for some interestingly awkward moments in the Academy days. Sylvain can’t even _begin_ to count the times it occurred in his presence, let alone imagine the times when it was just the two of you. The tension was palpable, and Dimitri still owes him for all those times he saved him from making a fool of himself any further.

But now, the tension between the two of you has become something entirely different. The way you look at each other with what feels like _tomes_ of ancient history within your eyes, even if it’s just a quick glance. It’s as if you’ve been bound together somehow. At first, he thought it had to do with your innate curiosity and concern for your former leading student, especially since he is…very obviously not okay. But it seems curiously deeper and gentler than the relationship between a professor and her pupil. Perhaps the boy has since turned into a real man and _finally_ realises he needs to make a move on you before the rest of the poor souls in Garrag Mach (or throughout Fódlan for that matter) burst a vessel waiting.

Even just between the rest of the Blue Lions, there have been many a night of gossip and speculation of when and how it may happen. Even though Felix and Dedue tried not to care for these conversations, they couldn’t help but crack a smile or two when they did tune in. Students from the other houses, inhabitants and visitors of Garreg Mach proved to be just as curious. Claude even casually discussed holding bets over the whole thing – how could Sylvain have turned down such a brilliant concept? Ingrid managed to catch wind and shut it down before they could fully execute the whole thing, but they did manage to secretly collect a ridiculous amount of bets on the night of the ball.

_Man, did I win big that night_ , Sylvain thinks to himself with a sudden chuckle.

“Sylvain, are you even listening?” Ingrid asks sternly.

“Ah, sorry,” he says with a cheeky grin, “got carried away thinking back on our old friends from the Alliance.”

She narrows her eyes doubtfully. Felix huffs with amusement from where he leans upon the wall behind them, arms crossed.

“We’ll still need to investigate first before we attempt to reach out to anyone. It’s too quiet over there.”

“I think so too,” Annette mutters pensively, “there are territories in the Alliance that have been quietly sending aid and supplies to either Faerghus or the Empire throughout the years – or even both. It’s impossible for them to be completely uninvolved, but they keep a good front thus far.”

Sylvain hums in agreement before noticing you in the distance, making your way towards the staircase up to the second floor of the monastery. You spare some more gazes about your surroundings before vanishing up the stairs without even so much as stopping by to say hello to everyone. The only counsel available upstairs right now would be that of Seteth, if anything. It must be an urgent matter if you’re going to see him.

“It’s decided then. Let’s all do some more digging into the status of the Alliance territories so we can fill in the Professor on the current events.” Ingrid hums thoughtfully, “I haven’t seen her yet today, but when I do I’ll fill her in.”

“She must be resting. I wouldn’t put past her the exhaustion from the endless briefings she’s had to go through. There’s so much to catch up on from the last several years, and she’s trying to get back up to speed with us all.” Annette says sympathetically, thinking of ways to ease your burden.

“She’s been busy worrying about how we’re all doing too,” Ashe adds, “especially so about His Highness.”

“Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen His Highness in the cathedral today,” Mercedes says thoughtfully, her soft brows furrowing with concern. “I worry he’s taken ill from sleeping on the pews.”

“Probably off in the Goddess Tower doing what he does best,” Felix huffs.

A stretch of uncomfortable silence prickles everyone’s lungs. As much as you had intended to keep the truth of Dimitri’s gruesome slaughters hush, there were too many signs across the monastery lands and rumours from the Empire for others to remain unknowing.

Sylvain clears his throat to break the tension and stands up from the table with a stretch.

“Well, in any case, at least he’s up and about doing something other than glooming in the cathedral. Haven’t seen him actually eat yet, but maybe he’s doing something right to have gotten this big on just weeds.”

“He still goes out to hunt. Freaks out a bunch of townspeople sometimes when he’s too close to the roads,” Felix says with a deep frown.

“So long as he’s back to hunting animals,” Sylvain says as he starts for the doors, “that’s a step in the right direction, if I’ve ever seen one.”

He looks back briefly to shoot a smile at Felix, slipping away right when his face contorts into a scowl. It was his usual way of letting his friend know he’ll be late for training again.

* * *

The sand of sleep was overwhelming, and you couldn’t help but to indulge the first few times. Eventually the sounds of life bustling about beyond your doors made you realize it’d be only a matter of time before someone notices that you haven’t come out of your room all day. Languidly, you pulled yourself up from your towel atop the bare mattress, each and every ache and throb across your body feeling far too real.

The muscles in your neck are so stiff and heavy, it feels as if they’ve turned into stone overnight. Your pelvis is sore and loose, once unyielding muscles now struggling to pull your body together. Strong, toned legs wobble like a new-born fawn’s when you try to even lift them up into the air. Your joints ache and loathe to even try standing.

Looking down at yourself, you finally see how your body is riddled with the bloodied, purple marks of Dimitri’s beastly taking. From your ears, down your neck, all the way down to your feet, angry bite marks and dark hickeys pepper your skin, sometimes even claiming dominance over your old scars. By the looks of your reflection against the candelabra, there’s little skin that isn’t marked or at the very least deeply reddened.

A thick rush of discharge expels from your core, rushing down your legs and alarming you. By the time you look down, several droplets of Dimitri’s thick, milky essence lay in the small space between your bare feet, beginning to pool together. Heat pulsates passionately though your body at the sight, easing more of him out of you now that you’re standing upright.

You’ll need to do something about this. You’ll have to wear something else too, at least until those marks fade.

* * *

Getting to the bathhouse doesn’t come with any trouble or much idle chatter. You’re able to calm your nerves and tend to your wounds in peace for some time before leaving to avoid others. The familiar voices of your students in the Reception Hall sends your stomach flying into your throat before you realise that they’re occupied amongst themselves, allowing you to slip away upstairs. The halls up here are largely empty. No archbishop, no professors, or captain. No students to study in the library anymore. But there’s a peacefulness in the silence, and you allow yourself a few moments to linger in your late father’s office, grateful that it’s remained untouched.

There are large bookshelves holdings the numerous tomes within the infirmary, but it’s surprisingly easier to search by category than you’d expect, considering they were managed by Manuela. While trying to make sense of her occasional scribbles among stains, little crumbs, and crumpled pages, you can’t help but to imagine the conversation the two of you would have if she knew what you were looking for.

You had once overheard Sylvain bringing up the use of contraceptive herbs and brews to Ingrid before getting a royal slap to the face from her. Curious, you asked him what this meant shortly after she had stormed off. The answer had been more than you were expecting, but thankfully proves to be helpful in your current predicament.

After looking through more encyclopaedias, relief washes over you upon finding a vast section on the topic, made from some of the more bitter herbs and fruits you know of in addition to many that you don’t know yet. Nothing the greenhouse shouldn’t know of.

Phew…you wouldn’t have known to look for this otherwise. You’ll have to give him your thanks, one day.

“Fancy catching you here, Professor.”

The lull of Sylvain’s charming voice coming from the door behind you has you thinking that perhaps you’ve spoken too soon. Turning to look at him, you’re taken off guard to see that he’s come closer than expected him in such little time, and you can’t help your feet from taking a sudden step backwards.

A knowing smile adorns his lips upon seeing your surprise, curling into a smirk ever so slightly. You look at him intently, trying to act as normally as you can.

You greet him with a nod.

“Sylvain. Are you here because you got hurt?” You ask him, genuinely curious after swallowing the leap of your stomach.

He seems like he’s here, looking for something.

“Not at all, I was wondering if I can help you look for something of Professor Manuela’s. You seem very focused in your search,” he says fluidly, his honey eyes darkening with intensity as he observes you.

Small hairs bristle as a small sweat breaks out on the back of your neck at the shock of his point-on stare. You have no doubt he’s aware of what you’re here for, and he just wants to hear it come from your mouth. The gears in your head jump into action quickly to cover yourself. You find it harder to do than you should.

“There’s no need, I’ve already found what I wanted. Just got curious looking through the other articles.”

His eyes have already caught a glimpse of the familiar content in your hands, a playful glint darting across them.

“Right, I recall this was a popular tea with the girls. If I remember correctly, I was the one who mentioned this particular tea to you years ago, wasn’t I? Ingrid really showed me one of her meanest hands that day.”

You nod in agreement. Straight to the point, as always.

“It’s fascinating that a few bitter herbs can really serve such a purpose.” You look to him with a straight, honest stare, “but even more so how it seemed to be common knowledge among the student body. I had no idea.”

He suddenly seems a little flustered, even if just for a brief moment before regaining composure as before. It’s hard to believe you could’ve carried on being a professor the whole time not knowing.

“C’mon, Professor, you know what they say about teenagers and their hormones.”

You cock your head at him, your big eyes intensely inquisitive.

“No, what is it that they say?”

He falters slightly here. You really were one-hundred percent focused on the necessities, weren’t you? Head-strong, focused, unbothered and unhindered by the trivial dramas around you. Perhaps young Dimitri’s awkward shyness around you was because of this, more than anything.

“Professor, would you be truthful with me?”

You furrow your delicate brows at him before offering a small nod, swallowing the rising anxiety in your gut.

“His Highness did something to you, didn’t he? You had to change your clothes to cover yourself up because of him?” He asks in a lower voice, gentle but stern.

You force yourself not to pull away or freeze up, looking straight into his honey-brown eyes that are swimming with concern. Everything he had just described encompassed all that you did with Dimitri last night. There’s no question he knows what transpired between the two of you, whether or not he was on duty for patrols. Someone must have heard – it’s not hard to guess where sounds come from at night. Your voice refuses to come out, for lack of words you have ready to say.

“Don’t worry Professor, I’ll go to talk to him about this. Please forgive the delay, I should’ve done so before you had to go through all that.”

He lets out an long, tired sigh before forcing out a short laugh. Bitterness briefly coats the handsome features of his face, lowering his eyebrows and darkening his eyes.

“Forgive me for saying this now, but…he’s always had trouble keeping his eyes to himself when you were around. It was honestly very hard _not_ to miss back then. Even when he was busy being a prince, he was either looking for you or looking at you. I can’t imagine the amount of staring you’ve had to suffer from him the way he is now. He’s probably just sulking somewhere after seeing you’ve covered up more. Even so much as to wear the Goddess Scarf – perhaps the holiness will help in your case.”

Oh Goddess. You try to hold back the look of relief but some of it escapes through your shaky sigh. Finally, you break the suffocating eye contact and shrink a little into yourself, taking advantage of the emotions coursing through you.

“Thank you,” you say quietly, squeezing your elbow nervously, “it means a lot that you’re willing to confront him in my stead, but I’ll do it myself. I’m his Professor, after all.”

He tips your chin up gently so he can look at you once more, his gaze sweeping over every feature you have. Your stern brows, straight pursed lips, and that strong determined look in your brilliant green eyes.

Your eyes tell him all he needs to know. He smiles reassuringly, standing up to full height before dropping his hands from you and patting your shoulder gently.

“We’ve all got your back, Professor. Let us know anytime if you need anything. Anything at all, even if it’s about Dimitri.”

He shoots you a playful wink before leaving you to continue your search in peace. An unsettling feeling settles deep in your spine as you can’t shake off that last glint in his eyes before he turned away.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years............thank you for your patience as I battled an epic episode of writing block (and watched my bf play Ashen Wolves dajlfhdsjkahfwej)  
> Smut incoming in the next chaptersss :>
> 
> Be well! Stay safe and sane everyone!

The sound of your door closing behind him is louder than he thought it’d be. Incessant, taunting voices are replaced by the painful screeching of white noise, coupled with the thunderous heartbeats trying to crash out of his chest. Disoriented and exhausted, he stumbles to the bathhouse. Early birds of the monastery are just now emerging, keeping their distance from his staggering form and opting to take their baths later in the day instead.

Dimitri doesn’t notice the raw state of his upper back and arms until he feels the sting of the hot water searing through his skin. It’s been a while since the skin of his back has been broken. No wound has been too memorable since the deep lashings received during Cornelia’s interrogations back in Faerghus.

He’s not used to the feeling of small wounds like these anymore. They’re irritated with anything that stretches or presses against his skin, something which the burden of his cloak certainly doesn’t help with. He tries recalling the moments that had you clawing so desperately to leave such deep marks. Was it the angle he was going into you? Or maybe the force? Only the Gods may know. Having been under the lustful haze of his adrenaline-filled rampage, he comes to the oddly disappointing realisation that he can’t really remember ever feeling your nails digging into his flesh.

He just remembers…everything else. Things like your hair plastered against your sweaty skin and sticking to his. Your strong body seizing in ecstasy, inside and out, pushing against him and pulling him in. The feel of your silken, scarred skin under his palms, between his lips and teeth, pressed flush against his body. The sweet scent of you and your room that welcomed him so tenderly. The unholy pleasure you created together.

_Ugh_ , may the Gods have mercy. It took every ounce of willpower he had left in him to tear away from you and leave. Had he stayed any longer, he would’ve surely lost sight of his greater purpose.

_Depraved beast._

Even just thinking of anything that’s mildly related to you, his thoughts reel and he sees all of you from the night before engulf his mind’s eye. It drives him mad. He hides himself away in the Goddess Tower to regain his senses, exhibiting a significant amount of self-control to not hunt you down and have you once more. That being said, the next time he sees you will test him greatly.

May the Gods have mercy, yes.

On _you_.

Sitting in that same corner he had been in when you returned, he tries order his thoughts in the empty silence of the voices that once plagued him. His lance across his lap, gauntlets on the ground beside him as his hands curl into fists, nails digging into his palms.

The quiet is…haunting. Intimidating. He never thought he’d come to rely on the abuse of his ghosts. He thought he’d relish the day they finally relent. But, after so long, he can no longer tell if the people around him, going about their business, are real or not. He thought he could gauge their existence depending on the reactions of the Lions, but what’s to say they’re not really here, too?

He grows particularly doubtful of the night you shared together, tearing himself apart to see if it was just a twisted figment of his imagination. He’s not sure which is worse. Having truly tainted you with his sullied hands, or having trashed the memory of you by imagining such a night.

_Pathetic._

“Stupid boar,” he whispers dryly, raking his hands through his hair as his body trembles with fury. “What have you done?”

“Your Highness.”

Dimitri whips around to see Dedue standing a few meters away with his arms at his sides. The injuries from his assault in the dungeons are scars upon his face at most, no longer bloody or freshly bruised as they used to appear. His armour has dulled with constant use, but he wears it as proudly as he did when he first received it.

Automatically, Dimitri’s hand flies to his own chest where the shard of gold earring has always been, only to find it gone. How could he not even notice it was missing? It was definitely there before he ran into you last night.

“Dedue...my friend, you…”

The rest of his words don’t come out. He’s only answered with the usual stern look, paired with a deep, dutiful bow.

“Forgive me for overstepping my bounds, but I would suggest assisting the Professor with providing her some methods for contraception.”

Oh. _Oh_. As straight to the point as ever. A sudden blush rises upon his sun-spotted cheeks and he can’t bear to look Dedue in the eye. He had been so enraptured in taking you, the fact that his friend’s room was situated right next to yours had completely slipped his mind.

“Oh gods…sorry for the…disturbance.”

“There’s nothing to apologise for, Your Highness. I simply speak out of concern for the interest of your futures.”

“Yes, of course…we can’t be hindered, especially now. Let’s check the infirmary.”

Although, if you were to be round with child, it would ensure _everyone_ knows you’re his. He’d make damn sure of it.

Perhaps someday.

Perhaps in another life.

Dedue stays close, continuing as if he hasn’t been gone a day. Dimitri remains wary, but undeniably elated to have him back in one piece. He certainly feels real, helping the prince up to his feet from his tortured perch in the dark tower corner and readjusting the Blaiddyd cloak over his shoulders. The relief that washes over Dimitri is almost overwhelming, prompting him to finally move about the monastery in broad daylight. He doesn’t fail to notice the unsettled looks as the two of them make their way through the monastery, however.

Lucky for them, he’s in a merciful mood.

* * *

Sylvain is quick to connect the dots. How it happened is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure: he’s won the biggest bet yet.

Before he’s able to turn the corner, his entire front side slams into an advancing wall of firm metal armour. The searing pain in his nose nearly makes his eyes water, and he pulls off his gloves to rub his face with a wince.

Of course, as if right on cue.

“In a hurry, Your Highness?”

Dimitri glares down at him coldly after quickly noticing your faint scent upon his hands. Anger bubbles in his gut as he thinks about another person so much as _looking_ at you, let alone touching you directly.

“Heading to the infirmary?” Sylvain asks in a friendly tone, despite sensing the imminent danger brewing before him.

“…”

He notes the prince is presenting like a hunter who had just smelled his prey, be it himself or the trail of your scent. Honey-brown eyes darken, even as the charming smile stays on his trained face. He leans closer to his friend and lowers his voice.

“Looking for the Professor, are we?”

Dimitri’s blood pounds noisily through his veins.

With the creak of the wooden doors, Sylvain looks over his shoulder to see you coming out of the infirmary. From above his head, Dimitri’s penetrating icy gaze snaps to you the second you come into his field of view. His hands are clenched into fists and your fiery-haired student seems none the wiser, even turning around to face you, leaving his back open to hands that are poised to pummel him.

“Professor! You finished up pretty fast.”

“Yes, I’d already found what I needed. Thank you for your help.”

“No, no, thank you for the pleasure.”

Dimitri bristles at that, narrowing his gaze as he glances down at Sylvain, and back at you once more. You had expressed concern over being heard last night, and yet here you are, freely consulting others without a care in the world. As a low hum starts to rumble in his chest, Dedue puts his hand on his shoulder.

“Your Highness,” He says simply.

Dimitri holds back his anger enough to not lash out.

“Well, seems like His Highness seeks your counsel.” Sylvain says nonchalantly, raising his brows to you. “I do mean what I said, Professor.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”

Sylvain leaves the feeling of an invisible barrier between the two of you with his departure. The stretch of silence is elongated with the intensity of the prince’s smouldering stare. Your own tongue is stuck fast to the roof of your mouth, the deep sea of your mind unable to dig up anything to say for some reason. You didn’t expect this to happen, and less so for him to speak first.

“Dedue mentioned finding remedies for—”

He stops when your eyes become wide, swimming with hope. Dimitri confirms with a nod while holding your gaze with conviction, but you scan behind him, brows furrowing. His tongue ties as he quickly recognises the bitter bite of betrayal spreading through his veins. His vision begins to tunnel as he prepares to defend himself.

He should’ve known it would come to this. This is the moment you confront him for losing his mind as Felix has seethed to you about so many times. This is when you finally show the anger and disgust you’ve been holding back this whole time, cleaning up after him and protecting him from everyone else. He waits for your rage, the rapid beating of his heart becoming the only thing he hears as your silence grows.

“Is he nearby?”

Your eyes bear heavily into his and he snaps back to attention, caught off guard. It’d be hard to miss seeing someone like Dedue even from a mile away, let alone right in front of you. He nods, cautiously gauging your response. Are you mocking him?

“Could you show me?”

“…”

Stepping aside, he puts his hand upon Dedue’s armoured shoulder. It’s sturdy and solid under his hand and an absolute wonder that you don’t see him, too. You come forward slowly, letting faith fill your heart as you put your hands out in front. Although you don’t feel anything solid before you, you start to sense a warmth on your palms. Perhaps it’s influenced by your hopeful imagination…but you want to believe in your heart that he’s here, somehow.

Dimitri watches anxiously as your small hands come to press lightly against Dedue’s stomach. The mountain of a man towers impressively over you, staying still with a small smile. His pale green eyes behold you with a gentle look, and his brow is relaxed with relief – a look that Dimitri hasn’t seen in many, many years.

“Hello, Dedue,” you say softly, imagining how he would appear now as you look over the empty space before you. He must be worried sick over Dimitri.

“Professor,” he replies to you with a nod in greeting. “It’s a great relief to see you well.”

After a pause, you lower your hands and speak softly.

“Thank you for doing your best all this time. It must’ve been difficult.”

Seeing you looking down with a smile, the hollow sadness in Dimitri’s chest slightly abates. Although he’s barely holding his reality together he can tell you’re trying your best to understand even if you can’t see or hear what he can.

“Ah, Dimitri, I’ve found some teas to discourage conception,” you say, holding out the notes you’ve scribbled to him. “They seem useful for the day after intercourse. In the worst case scenario, would induce a miscarriage later on. It should also help that my cycles are irregular.”

Dimitri stands still, shocked by your bluntness. He shoots a glance at Dedue beside him, who looks to him briefly with a quirk of surprise in his brow before turning and walking a few steps away to give you two some privacy.

“The seeds of Queen Anne’s Lace should be the most effective,” Dedue mentions with his back still turned.

“I’ll gather some seeds from the greenhouse tonight.” You say, looking up at Dimitri with a sunny smile. “Thank you for bringing Dedue.”

The prince nods, watching wordlessly as you excuse yourself and take your leave. He couldn’t have imagined how conflicted your acknowledgment of Dedue would make him feel. He feels…numb, and electric simultaneously. A peaceful calm comes from being heard for the first time in far too long, while it feels like his grasp on reality is further crumbling. All he can know for sure is that the only beacon of direction he has remaining at the end of it all is Edelgard.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you are all staying well and staying safe <3  
> Thank you for all of your awesome support and enthusiasm throughout my sporadic uploading - it brings me such joy to read your comments and see you enjoying this humble work!! Let's get to it!

“Tell me what happened in Faerghus.”

A visible veil of unease falls over Ashe at your query, grey brows furrowing softly into a dark, anguished look. His expression deepens the void of dread in your gut, but you still wait patiently for an answer.

“Erm, how about we start with what you know so far?” He manages to say, moving towards a table in the vacant courtyard.

“I just know what’s been discussed at strategy meetings, nothing more…”

It wasn’t difficult to notice how the Houses of your students seem to be at odds with Fhirdad – which is being referred to as the Dukedom. It’s something that hasn’t been explained to you yet, as everyone’s been tiptoeing around it. The responsibility visibly settles upon Ashe when he realises there’s no more shielding you from the truth. He leans his body forward a little, eyes lowered, hands curled into loose fists in his lap as he speaks.

“His Highness was sentenced to death for allegedly being involved in the murder of his uncle, late King Rufus. The courts were relatively easy to sway, especially since Cornelia had an upper hand in rallying them against his Highness after…some of the things he did after we lost you.”

Your chest tightens. You saw what he did here at the monastery upon your return. Considering Dimitri’s vengeful state of mind after the revelations in the Holy Tomb, he must have been absolutely relentless in battle. From the sounds of it, his actions must have been particularly…atrocious, coming from a crown prince. You can only imagine the absolute chaos such a verdict of regicide entailed. Suffering yet another loss with the death of his uncle in addition to grappling with betrayal of the royal court…it is beyond words.

You throat is dry, and your voice comes out smaller than you thought it would. It’s drenched in fear, and takes Ashe by surprise.

“And Dedue?”

This is the first time you’ve been able to be brave enough to ask, but since seeing Dimitri alone in the Goddess Tower, since trying to see the Dedue that he sees, you just _know_. Still, you’d be stupid to ever think you’re prepared to hear the worst case outcome. Your trembling voice breaks his heart. He straightens up, looking right at you as his face settles into a soft but stern and solemn look. Whatever voice you have left is nothing more as your breathing stops before he even speaks.

“Dedue somehow arranged an escape for His Highness and…took his place in the execution.”

Your head empties suddenly, everything coming to a standstill as you stand within the eye of the hurricane of emotions inside. Of course…of course. That would be the most reasonable explanation. He has always been loyal to his friend, almost to a fault. There’s no doubt that Dedue would give his own life to protect Dimitri’s. To protect those he considered his friends. But…you would never have been prepared to lose your precious student and confidant so suddenly.

“Apologies, Professor…I wish I could say that what happened was different.”

Ashe gingerly puts his hand on your upper back, to help ground you. He watches you gently, cradling you in his gaze as he gauges your shock and heartbreak. A piece of you has already receded deep into the bottom of your soul, leaving you with the hollow shell you must upkeep to continue on as usual. This sharp-eyed sniper can sense the façade of yours in place even before you speak.

“Thank you for being truthful to me, Ashe,” you say stiffly, watching your vision tunnel into the ground before you, “I needed to know this. For when we’re garnering our ally forces, and for when I’m speaking with everyone.”

“Breathe, Professor. Look at me,” he says, bending forward to look you in the eyes, “we will pull through this together.”

His clear peridot eyes steady you as you suck in a shaky breath. His soft smile is reassuring, the image keeping you eerily calm long after you’ve separated and gone about your day. This is Ashe’s subtle magic, you ponder fondly. But you still find it difficult to sleep while your brain goes about picking apart all of Fódlan for allies to contact and enemies to be wary of. You go to the empty training grounds to train more than your body should allow.

When you finally do return to your room, you find the piece of Dedue’s gold earring peeking out from underneath your nightstand, noting some old blood staining a small section of it upon closer inspection. Cupping it within your shaky hands, you press the cold shard against your forehead.

_Sothis…how has it come to this? What could I have done differently…_

You know that only her silence will follow…yet it still hurts you deeply. Though the existence of conflict was a major constant in your upbringing, you can’t help but to imagine the possibility of peace for all of your beloved students, no matter their house. But these reckless wars and power plays during the endless struggle for the thrones have cost so many people their chances of living peacefully with their loved ones. Like your father. Like Dedue. Countless families and bonds that met their premature ends, caught up in the crosshairs of feuds over crests or land. Poisoned by pride.

Dimitri disappears the day after. No warning, no note, no shadow to chase – he’s just…gone. Plagued by the reality of Dedue’s fate by the hands of the Dukedom, you fear the worst for the missing prince. The Lions try to reassure you, though it’s painfully clear that they’re worried too. Gradually, the marks on your body begin to fade with each bath, and your period comes without much ado. Thanks to continued unrelenting training sessions and plentiful skirmishes across Fódlan, your body regains its strength with each hard-earned sunset. Your resolve hardens with each battle, focusing on protecting your students and the monastery, buts somewhere in the recesses of your mind, there remains a shared of hope of redemption for the Imperial Emperor.

You had emerged from the shroud of vengeance during your long fall down the canyon, realised that the solution is simpler than you once thought. That there’s still hope. That hope was always there, even after all of the hurt and betrayals that Edelgard has been associated with. Though it may not have seemed like it at times, she has never been entirely indifferent about all the suffering throughout Fódlan. You saw the anguish swimming within her lilac eyes in those moments she would truly confide in you, before suddenly pretending everything was fine. Even in her abrasive first words after your father’s murder, she seemed…so sorry.

She had been clear that there were some events she wasn’t involved in, considering the many parties in the mix. She had been clear that she has a vision for this world, and rightfully so, as every leader should. She bears the weight of her actions and inactions, even if she doesn’t show it outright. This much you know of the Emperor. This much you intend to use to reason with her.

* * *

“Professor!” Annette calls, flitting beside you with her bubbly blue gaze, “you seemed a bit flushed during the meeting. Are you feeling alright?”

A brief wave of panic washes over you before you reason with yourself – there’s no way the marks are still there. Your thoughts fly to the old bite marks at the base of your neck, where the scabs still cause you a small degree of discomfort when your collar rubs against them. Neither Annette nor the rest of the Blue Lions seemed none the wiser since the day you first got them.

“I feel well. Might just be the weather.”

Her clear, bright blue eyes sparkling before you make you feel vaguely as if you’ve committed a crime by trying to keep your secret from her.

“Oh, if you need a thicker nightgown for winter, Mercedes and I would be more than happy to find you one! One that’ll keep you nice and cosy while showing off your curves~”

“Just something thicker will be fine,” you say warmly, appreciative of the support, “I would be happy to have your help.”

“We’re free to accompany you to the town whenever you see fit, Professor – just let us know.” Mercedes hums gently, putting her hand on your arm with a feather-light touch. “Though if you’ll excuse us, we’ll take our leave for now. It seems His Highness seeks your counsel.”

Before you can respond, the young ladies smile knowingly at you and turn right on their heels toward the reception hall. A light fluster blooms in the stem of your stomach as it begins to dawn on you that your secret may be more obvious that you had originally thought. You shake the worry away for another time.

You turn to see Dimitri standing in the middle of the pathway leading to the cemetery, his figure defined purely by his large royal cloak, partially obscured by a pillar. He stands there, unmoving, like a ghost, though his presence is far too hard to ignore. An unspeakable relief washes over you to see that he’s still in one piece. Yet your stomach jumps into your throat at the sight of him as you barely resist the urge to fly on over to him and ask him _where the hell have you been_. You walk over, wary of frightening him.

He greets you with no more than a brief glance, as if he hasn’t been gone a day…as if nothing ever happened. To your surprise, his painfully distant behaviour makes your chest feel like a pincushion, and it shows on your face. No note, no warning, he didn’t even write to let you know if he was still alive or not, and you had no way of finding him. At the very least, he should’ve found a way to let his allies know of his whereabouts every week.

Then again, you were gone with no word at all, those 5 years. You fell before all of your students, to what should have been certain death. You feel a deep guilt sap the colour from your cheeks.

“Where did you go?” You ask patiently, allowing your frustration to take a back seat the moment your eyes drink in the sight of him again.

That same azure gaze beholds you as coldly as it did before, in the Goddess Tower.

“Come.”

He doesn’t even wait for an answer before he turns and walks towards the cathedral. Wordlessly, you follow, quietly excited and pleased to just see that he’s alright. You have so many questions for him, as well as some scolding, but you figure it can wait. He must’ve discovered something important during his time away if your attention is needed so urgently.

* * *

Ever since the moment he staggered out of your quarters in the early hours of the morning, his mind has been wickedly distracted by thoughts of your raw beauty. His body shudders when your tender, phantom touch brushes his cheek in the wind. His ears blush when they echo with the whispers of your ragged sighs and your sultry moans. His body has been imprinted with yours, incessantly yearning to hold you once more. The details drive him crazy. Just the mere scent of you in the wind is enough to cause a straining in his trousers, painfully smothered by his armour.

The only thing he could do to snap out of it was to throw himself mindlessly into scouring for new developments in the Empire, accompanied by Dedue. He found some allies in the form of bandits during his time away from Garreg Mach. Sniffed out some more shady business within the Alliance and their dealings with the Empire. Unsurprisingly found that there’s a big bounty on his head. He dreamt of sticking Cornelia’s head next to Edelgard’s on the Gates of Enbarr, lining them up with the other students of the house who raised their weapons for their cursed cause. And every few nights, he dreamt briefly of being allowed to lay his head in your lap to keep the voices away.

Now that he’s back, the first person he wants to see is you. When he finally does lay eyes upon you, he can’t find it in himself to tear you away from your undisturbed routine, walking the monastery grounds, chatting with the others. He’s written down all of his findings in his journal anyways, and can tell you all about it later. He just needs his well-deserved reward, which you seem ready to give.

His broad body towers over you, engulfing you in a desperate embrace. Your skin burns with the force of his touch, lips burning from each fiery kiss. The chill of winter only finds you from his armour within the confines of his arms and cloak.

“Here?” You ask breathlessly, fighting to recover from his harsh kisses.

You wince when he grabs a fistful of your hair, effectively quieting you. Peering at him through your lashes, you see nothing but his dark, stern expression, witnessing that ravenous hunger lurking in his torrid gaze before his lips descend upon yours once more. His other hand is on the small of your back, sliding down to grasp a handful of your ass with a force that you’re worried might rip through your clothes. Your pained groan makes its way into the kiss. It’s impossible to fight back in this position without wounding either of you, with his death grip on your flesh.

What a miracle it is for your body to still stand after all that happened the first time, though you’re not so certain the same can be said after today – in the Goddess Tower, no less. Everywhere you look, you’re surrounded by ancient masonry, rubble, and overgrown vines. You’ve almost recovered from your love wounds, and aren’t exactly thrilled to get more abrasions that aren’t inflicted by Dimitri himself. There’s no way he can even attempt to sneak you out of here without being noticed by the crowds of people in the vicinity below.

That’s only if you can keep your voice down _and_ if you’re still in one piece at the end of it.

At least there are very few souls who will dare to come here without good reason. The essence of death still lingers, long after the bodies have been removed. Dull, darkened blood stains still persist, soaked through to the stone stairwell. Eerily, this place gives a special edge to Dimitri’s touch, a desire to ravish you that is ten times more profound in such a tainted place.

“I warned you,” he hums dangerously, drawing his tongue against the sensitive shell of your ear.


	15. Chapter 15

Your body shudders against heavy shackles of lust, causing your toes to curl in your boots. He rips your cloak from your shoulders before swiftly freeing your breasts with a strong tug of your underclothes, pulling your armour away with them. The heat of his hungry lips are on the tender skin of your neck within moments, grazing his teeth against your sensitive skin and nipping near the fading mark he left before. He’s irritated at how light the mark has faded to, subconsciously tightening his grip on your hair, pulling you backwards further and making it harder for you to breathe.

“Dimitri, my hair, it hurts,” you croak, wriggling against him.

He doesn’t hear you, and continues his trail of mouthing your skin lower, from nipping at your collarbone to tonguing your bare breasts. As sensitive as you are, you can’t truly enjoy the sensation with the burning at your scalp and the dry narrowness within your throat. Irritation nestled in your gut, you yank on the shell of his ear roughly to get his attention.

And by the gods, do you get it.

Although he does release your hair, that same hand moves to swiftly wrench your wrist away from his reddened ear. His teeth sink into your breast in surprise and has you thrashing to try to remove yourself from his hold. Like a predator with its prey, he only holds you tighter to him, and his grip on your wrist hurts.

“ _Dimitri_!” You growl, still struggling as he releases you from his mouth and moves into a crouching position before you, as if he’s about to tackle you to the ground. You sense the pounce in his muscles and are moments away from just kneeing him between the legs to incapacitate him before he potentially hurts you.

He processes the thick displeasure in your voice and aura, unhanding you abruptly and stepping backwards to put distance between your bodies. The bite of cold air feels offensive to the sensitive skin of your breast, exacerbated by the lingering mark of his saliva. He wiggles his tender ear, his gaze locked on you. Both of you are breathing a little heavily.

“You can be rough with anywhere of me, just not my hair.”

He scoffs. “Because it’s blessed?”

“No, because it _hurts_ ,” you respond with a sharp glare at his jab, “and _not_ in a good way.”

Guilt mangles his insides knowing that his actions have displeased you, to the point you even inflicted a shameful pinch upon his ear. You’ve never given him so much as a smack for having poor posture during training, let alone touched him with intent to hurt. He averts his gaze and clenches his jaw, reprimanding himself for his roughness.

“Fine,” he spits out.

“Thank you.”

He makes no move to approach, and instead awkwardly stays across from you, feeling like a child who was scolded. As the pain on your scalp subsides and the fire of irritation snuffs out, you feel unbearably exposed and move to cover your nakedness.

But he had warned you.

The rage of possessiveness bubbles up into his chest. He’s not finished yet, and easily closes the distance between you to remove your hands from obscuring his view. His touch is still strong, but moves with your body instead of against it, just as it did the first night you touched. Bending over, his warm lips descend upon the crook of your neck with a determination to leave a new, fresh mark, and you let your eyes close as you melt into him. His gloved hands grasp your breasts greedily, deft thumbs brushing against your pert nipples to send shivers up your spine. You understand with a pout that he’s learning how to play your body to his liking far too quickly.

But you let him.

Your hands wander, from caressing the heat from his pinched ear to counting the plates of cold armour that protects his body. As you explore him, your arms reach their limit, fingers barely brushing the section that lies over his groin. A frustrated huff draws his attention to your fingers, struggling while trying to find an opening in the armour over his abdomen, dangerously near his painfully growing erection. He pulls away to look at you with an inquiring, furrowed brow, the look of restraint. You return the gaze, excitement and determination gleaming in your eyes despite the dizzying rouge that colours your cheeks.

“May I…touch you?”

He doesn’t expect to hear that from you, narrowing his eye in hesitation while his heart pounds deafeningly in his ears.

Kneeling before his full length, you become drunk on the heady scent surrounding his arousal. You remember this smell, most clearly from checking in on him at his quarters once when he was ill with a fever. This was the scent you noticed when he opened the door a small crack – the same scent in his grip that nearly crushed the heavy oak with nervousness. Suddenly, it makes sense what Sylvain had said in passing later that day, that the prince was ill with heat more than anything. You didn’t understand he wasn’t talking about the weather, and had thought it odd to see Ingrid fly out from the blue and smack the lad with the force of an axe in her open palm.

How foolishly naïve you were. You had no idea he was suffering from the first bouts of lust, this late in his adolescence. You had no idea it was triggered that one late night you sparred with him without your usual armour, allowing your body to move around _too_ freely. That it was unbearable when you invited him to the sauna and he went fucking _mad_ noticing how your loungewear would cling to your nipples in the hot steam. That with the help of your sweat, he could see the shape of your ass and the curves of your lower lips through your clothes. That he had to leave before he had to lob off his dick and bury it somewhere just to keep his last shred of humanity before the Gods. Or that the torture was exacerbated whenever he caught your sweet scent in the wind, or when you stared up at him with your lovely lavender eyes.

You were absolutely clueless of all these things, and still are. But at least you’ve figured out that he was sick with lust…that one time. You’ve also figured out that now, so are you.

And you can’t help but to indulge.

As his swollen tip gradually slides past your lips, you can actually see the thick veins pulsating along his length. He’s breathing through his teeth, gaze locked on to you as he’s barely able to keep himself from just taking you and fucking your face. If he did that, you might actually rip his ear off.

Or worse.

“Mind your teeth,” he growls softly, shifting against the wall.

_Noted._

You glance upwards at him, drinking in his tortured look while you busy your mouth. His brows are furrowed, gaze dark with lust and his mouth set in a snarl…the crinkle in his nose more than enough to know that he’s holding back…significantly. Loosening your jaw a little more, you pull away, dragging your lips and tongue along him and listening to the lewd sounds that rattle through the bones in your head. You catch every shiver and tightening of his body from here, even underneath his armour as the plates move together over his muscles. His breaths are tenuously uneven, broken with soft, husky grunts that further tighten the knot in your gut.

As you continue moving your head, you notice that applying a little twist causes him to clench his pelvic muscles _much_ more. Feeling brave, you grip his battle-hardened ass with vigour and he bucks forward into your mouth, ramming his tip against the back of your throat. Tears well in your eyes as your gag reflex makes you heave, hands moving quickly to push against his pelvis and keep him from choking you to death.

You pull away to rest your jaw and throat after that surprise thrust, coughing and rubbing your throat to clear the sore stinging sensation. The heat continues radiating from his member, rigid and aching for more relief. Colours of bashfulness scamper into your rosy cheeks as you feel the weight of his gaze, even without looking up. He slowly moves to sit down on the floor with bated breath, trying his damnedest to stay steady, stay calm.

All his efforts are undone the longer he drinks in the look of your sweet, down-turned gaze, everlastingly elegant with a fleeting demureness as your fingers press against the kiss marks on the flesh of your neck. The beast within awakens as he drinks in the fact that you’re actually looking a bit…shy.

“Turn your ass towards me.”

Oh.

Even though you’ve heard far more vulgar things before, it’s never made you feel anything until now. You feel exceptionally naughty upon imagining how the once proper gentleman he was 5 years ago would think of his choice of words. Yet you do as he asks, curious as to what enjoyment he expects from looking at your rear, curious to examine him from this new angle of exposure. You discover his inner thighs are quite sensitive to gentle caresses and hard grasps. However, he doesn’t seem to like it very much when your pry too far towards his rear. You take note as you continue memorising the feel of his chiselled form, relaxing and tightening underneath your hungry hands.

When his hot tongue flattens and rubs against your clit, jolts of ecstasy spill from your core, effectively eroding the strength in your spine. Tapping against his leg hurriedly, you’re desperate to get him to stop, gasps of surprise escaping you while his shaft is still very well-situated within your mouth. You didn’t think that he’d kiss your lower lips so deeply. Never expected it to send these electrifying pulses of pleasure up your spine and into your core.

His roughened hands grab the flesh of your ass, massaging into the deep tissue of your muscles several times before moving forward to study the contours of your hips and waist. Nails graze up and down your sensitive back before he comes to grope your breasts, sinking his fingers into your tender flesh and brushing the sensitive peaks in passing.

Your gentle moans rumble around him and you can feel him getting stiffer with each passing moment. Soon enough, you both can’t hold off any longer. The hiss of sharp breath drawing through teeth catches your attention. Before you can react, his hands grip the sides of your head as his hips thrust forward, shoving his length deep into your mouth and down your throat.

 _Fuck_ , it hurts!

By the third time he’s reached down your throat, you’ve sunken your nails deep into his thighs to make him stop. Thankfully, he does relieve you, granting you freedom to breathe after withdrawing his length from your mouth and pulling you up by your arms to lean his forehead against yours. His thighs throb with pain that spurs him on and he gets on his hands and knees now, caging you under him. You lie there with your chest heaving, cradling him in your hooded gaze as he engulfs you with his heat and his shadow.

“Professor,” he whispers darkly, “I hope you’re prepared.”

You’re not sure that you are. The force of his kisses press you firmly against the floor and he lifts your legs up so your opening faces him, warm and inviting. The feeling of air against your wet entrance is embarrassing, but to him, the sight of your slick sliding down your lips and dripping down towards your ass? By the _Gods_ , he just can’t help himself from plunging his entire length straight into you, eating up your moans with deep, possessive kisses that take the air from your lungs.

You don’t remember when he put your cloak underneath you. Your skin still becomes tender before long, but it only adds to the tenacious way he hits your deepest part. Your core churns out more slick, adding to the vulgar squelching, slamming sounds from his body joining with yours. These sounds and your broken gasps echo within the tower, and you can only pray no one hears it outside.

Just when you think you can’t take any more, he sweeps you up into his arms as he gets back up on his feet. He presses you against the wall next, right by the broken window, just shy of the sunlight that would reveal you to the people below. You try your best to keep your voice down, going so far as biting your lip bruised. He surely doesn’t seem interested in helping you stay quiet, instead dangerously devoted to pounding into you ever harder, grabbing your rear with the strength of a lion, lavishing your nipples with his hot tongue and grazing over them with his teeth. The pleasure is dull and electric at the same time, and it makes your head spin.

These walls are still sturdy despite the damage from the day the Empire invaded, but they could very well crumble further with the force of Dimitri’s massive thrusts. He’s unstoppable. He’s so focused, it’s sexy and scary all the same. Your bones creak each time your bodies connect and it almost feels as if your pelvic bones are loosening.

You’re definitely going to feel this well into tomorrow.

“Please,” you whisper, cupping his cheek. You’re not even sure what you’re begging for at first but then you feel a swell inside of you that’s about to overflow.

He lifts you away from the wall with his strong arms coiled around your body, holding you close as he lifts you off his straining shaft and brings you smashing right back down on it. It’s as if he’s shaking the stars from the heavens right into your eyes. Your starry, sultry eyes. Piercing and soft all the same, watching him with a gaze he’s determined to keep secret from everyone else.

“Dimitri,” you gasp quietly, _desperately_ , right as you feel the floods of pleasure pour through your entire body. The muscles throughout your body tremble with each climax and there’s nothing you can do to fight it, no matter what strength you manage to muster. And then a low snarl rumbles in his chest that makes your core twist with shameless yearning. That last clench of your silken sheath around him brings his climax sooner than he’d intended.

He withdraws moments before emptying his pent-up essence all over your chest and stomach. You feel oddly disappointed in seeing this, until a particularly energetic spurt finds its resting spot across your face and wipes that thought from your mind. Surprised, you look up at him through your covered lashes as you try to wipe it away. It’s creamy and dries quickly, leaving a bit of a tight film behind. How fascinating.

His eye narrows and you feel your chest tighten. He collects you into his arms again, engulfing you with his warmth. That menacing voice is pressed against your throat, low and laced with intoxication as it draws all of your body’s heat to your core.

“ _Again_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is my first ever post ^^Y Thank you for your interest, I hope you enjoy my humble work! It's a pleasure to be able to share this with you~
> 
> P.S. smut comes in around chapter 8 :>


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